Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 104

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Archive 100

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Talk:COVID-19 lab leak theory

I think we need more eyes on the talk page for COVID-19 lab leak theory regarding multiple discussion threads there. There's been a lot of WP:SPA and new account activity over the past two months and there should really be broader community involvement so WP:LOCALCONSENSUS issues don't occur. There's several instances of comments currently on the talk page where accounts more or less openly state that they're trying to make POV changes because the scientific community is covering up the facts. Silver seren^C 21:58, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Just for bookkeeping so that people following this noticeboard are aware, there are at least two drahmaboard discussions about this matter active now:

jps (talk) 17:47, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I also have a heavy suspicion that somewhere in here are some socks (especially given the sheer number and timeline of SPAs and anons). I filed a CheckUser on two of the new SPAs, but they were likely unrelated.

Is it possible a bunch of random people from various corners of the internet are all simultaneously becoming interested in this topic again? Yes. Is it more likely that at least one or a few of these are socks of LTAs? Also yes. — Shibbolethink ^(♔ ^♕) 14:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

It's also possible that they're all separate people that are organizing this activity together on some conspiracy forum somewhere. Much harder to detect in that case. Silver seren^C 16:06, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

That was my thinking. Alternatively the election of Trump has reinvigorated WP:SPA's who are out to WP:RGW. TarnishedPath^talk 23:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

It seems to me the problem with that article has always been that "lab leak theory" is not really an encyclopedic topic. The topic is Origin of SARS-CoV-2 and really not much has changed as far as evidence goes in years. If there is an encyclopedic topic of "Lab Leak" it is the story, recent and ongoing history, a narrative of notable events. WP has taken a story and tried to transform it into a topic for an encyclopedia. fiveby(zero) 16:39, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

It's a conspiracy theory, which is entirely an encyclopedic topic. Just because "vaccines cause autism" is complete bokum doesn't mean it's not encyclopedic to have our Vaccines and autism article. Silver seren^C 16:52, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Ido Kedar using Facilitated Communication

I'm not even sure how to word this question to you all, but it comes down to this, if Ido Kedar is using Facilitated communication and or Rapid prompting method and is a student of RPM founder Soma Mukhopadhyay then how is it that Kedar is listed as being "author, memoirist, essayist, educator, and autistic advocate"? Sgerbic (talk) 21:18, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Is he still only using FC/RPM? The article claims he types on a tablet unassisted. jps (talk) 21:56, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Not a WP:RS, but the best sanguine evaluation I can find: [1]. No real explanation as to whether Kedar may be engaging in validated augmentative and alternative communication or is still in the thralls of FC/RPM. jps (talk) 22:23, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

So despite that no one has ever been proved to have become an independent writer after using FC, we have to assume that this person is an independent writer just because they said so? If so can we start writing articles from people who are dead but are currently telling us about what life is like in heaven? I'm only half-joking. Sgerbic (talk) 23:50, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Our hands are tied by WP:RS and WP:BLP. The blogpost is the best we can do with someone evaluating the situation and we really can't use it for any claims. An alternative might be to argue that we don't have reliable WP:FRIND sources about the subject and asking for deletion. jps (talk) 02:38, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

It's one of those cases where, I think, so-called weasel words would be appropriate. I don't know if the zeitgeist in WP has changed in regards to their use. He is an "alleged" those things. Who claims that he is those things? That's the problem. We don't really know! VdSV9•♫ 13:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd say deletion is the best option, if we have no reliable sources. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:47, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ido Kedar. Let's see how this goes. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

During the AfD discussion, two peer-reviewed papers were identified which I think more-or-less cast doubt on the FC/RPM techniques associated with the claims of communication. I have added them to the talkpage of the article. Perhaps they can be used in the article in some fashion, but I'm not exactly clear to what end (and to what extent articles which implicitly or explicitly contradict these points should also be included). jps (talk) 22:56, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

For the record, I courtesy blanked the AfD, not because of BLPVIOs but because we should be ashamed of it, as a community. Polygnotus (talk) 13:14, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Water fluoridation controversy

Water fluoridation controversy (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

RFK Jr. may belong in the article, but some people insist it has to be in a specific way, which results in lots of edit-warring recently. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if this is the correct space for this. But why do we call it a "controversy"? There is no reasonable controversy to speak of when we're looking at water fluoridation. We don't call the antivaxxer movement part of a "vaccination controversy", or do we? The nicest terms I've seen used is "hesitancy", as in vaccine hesitancy. I think anti-fluoridation cranks deserve the same treatment as anti-vaxxers. Also, they're mostly the same people... I'm thinking the tone should be more in line with anti-vaccine movement or outright mention misinformation, like in COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and hesitancy. VdSV9•♫ 12:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, deleting the "controversy" part would probably give a better article name. "Opposition to water fluoridation"? But that belongs on the talk page. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:08, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

That would be a better name Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Looks like there has been discussion on the talk page about this: I've moved the article to Opposition to water fluoridation; parts of this article will have to be reworded. GnocchiFan (talk) 14:42, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Well...JAMA Pediatrics did publish a meta-analysis linking water fluoridation to decreased IQ in children. That review is now prominently emplaced in the (stupidly large) lead of the main fluoridation article - but interestingly enough, not in the "opposition" article in question (yet). I don't know how you intend to handle this, and I probably wouldn't have time to contribute to this on top of editing my usual subject matter, but it's worth mentioning. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 18:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

JAMA Pediatrics did publish a meta-analysis linking water fluoridation to decreased IQ in children. No, they didn't. That's inaccurate and misleading. It not a link between fluoridation, as in Fluoride being added to the water, and IQ decrease. But Fluoride exposure from drinking water. Places with higher than 1500 ppm of Fluoride in water have those levels naturally - and an inverse association was found to be statistically significant only in those cases. So it's not from fluoridation, it's for a lack of control over the natural levels of fluoride in the water supply, which means there are also confounding factors: what other possibly toxic elements could naturally be in that untreated water? It's a very small effect with lots of confounding factors.

Looking at that big paragraph that mentions this and other studies, and it's a mess. One thing jumped out and I'm editing out right now. VdSV9•♫ 15:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

See also Water fluoridation, which is teetering on the brink of an edit war. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, experienced eyes on Water fluoridation would be appreciated. Someone added a bunch of FRINGE and it stuck for months. Now an editor with about 180 edits to their name is all like "STATUSQUO" and it's really aggravating. Also, expert criticism on some systematic review studies is, apparently, undue, and the most sensationalized interpretations of the study (i.e. actual anti-Fluoridation propaganda) is, apparently, NPOV. VdSV9•♫ 02:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

You might ask the newer editor whether they've actually read WP:STATUSQUO. It doesn't say what a lot of editors think it says. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:43, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

I have added a new thread below as both are different topics. --Julius Senegal (talk) 21:45, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Misandry

Old/current Wikipedia message: "Misandry is a minor issue, not equivalent to the widespread practice and extensive history of misogyny.^[1]"

My suggested edit: Some experts see misandry as a minor issue, not equivalent to the widespread practice and extensive history of misogyny.^[1] Others disagree, and see misandry as a major issue.^[2]

My edit has been reverted by @mrollie and @Binksternet (who said I was engaging in an edit war or about to, but reverted himself, which I didn't fully understand.)

Their reasoning was that seeing misandry as a minor issue was the consensus amongst scholars. However, I said that there was no evidence that the majority of scholars don't see misandry as a big deal, or that seeing misandry as a big deal was a "fringe issue" amongst scholars. Who's in the right here?

P.S. if you think I'm in the right I'd appreciate it if you reverted it for me so that I don't get into trouble for edit wars.

Thank you all for your time. Wikieditor662 (talk) 06:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC) Wikieditor662 (talk) 06:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

And please note that this is regarding the text in the Misogyny article. Wikieditor662 (talk) 06:15, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

If the best source you can find to demonstrate the prevalence of a position is a blog post published in a pop science rag, then it is quite possibly a fringe position. Remsense ‥ 论 06:19, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

The Misandry and Misogyny articles must both tell the reader that misogyny is a huge deal and misandry is comparatively minor and recent. That's because the people who make the most noise in social media about misandry—members of the men's rights movement—have been pushing a false equivalence to get more sympathy for their cause. They keep saying that misandry is a huge deal, much the same as misogyny. Scholars who study these issues have formed a consensus against the MRM position, saying that misogyny has a few thousand years of terrible mistreatment of women, while misandry is about 1 percent of that, as it is a recent accusation, representing a backlash against the advances of feminism. Topic scholars making this description include David G. Gilmore, Marc Ouellette, Heidi R. Riggio, Michael Kimmel, Alice E. Marwick, Robyn Caplan, Frances Ferguson and R. Howard Bloch, among many others. These are all cited in the misandry article. In fact, 40 topic scholars have declared a "misandry myth" contradicting the MRM claims, saying that feminists in general do not hate men. It's a thing. Binksternet (talk) 06:44, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Just because it's newer doesn't mean it's a minor issue, and misandry doesn't have to mean that feminists in general hate men. Do the sources you listed also state that it's a consensus that misandry is a minor issue? To clarify, are they claiming that they think it's a minor issue or are they stating that it's the consensus? Perhaps you could point to specific from the sources?

@Remsense I wasn't sure it was a blog post, but I did see the person writing the article had a PHD, and I saw some other places on google scholar stating that too.

Wikieditor662 (talk) 07:05, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

The WP:ONUS is on you to demonstrate the proposed changes represent positions in proportion to their prominence in the body of reliable sources. This is something the post above goes much farther in demonstrating, even citing a survey of many relevant scholars. Remsense ‥ 论 07:14, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Just because it's newer doesn't mean it's a minor issue Then it's a good thing that nobody said that was the reason for it being a minor issue. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like “comparatively minor” would be more accurate, unless sources state that it is a minor issue on some kind of absolute scale. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:49, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Black male studies sources do not consider at least the racialized version of misandry to be a minor issue.--Reprarina (talk) 11:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

misandry is comparatively minor and recent

From what source did you get the idea that hatred towards men appeared recently? I read a lot of sources including Misandry myth and Drinking male tears. There is no such thing there. On the contrary, sources say that feminism is no more misandrist than non-feminism and antifeminism.--Reprarina (talk) 11:46, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Is the claim that it is less harmful, or less widespread? The ability to carry out harmful action is directly proportional to power structures, and desire to do harmful things can exist without harmful action. From what I can tell, the sources being cited are mainly discussing the harmful action aspect, referencing the larger number of men holding positions of power. I don't see support for the claim that misandry is a "minor issue" in sense of being a less common form of prejudice, as is implied by the article. Dekadoka (talk) 15:02, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

It's definitely an issue that has received increased attention. But it does probably need better sourcing to back your stance. I would recommend something like Of Boys and Men by Reeves. Granted, I largely disregard the MRM as weirdos. But the subject has gotten treatment from people who aren't online weirdos.

I would also note that misandry doesn't necessarily mean overt and explicit "hatred" of men exclusively. By all accounts, the jerk at the office or the Harvey Weinstein at the job interview doesn't hate women. They're probably very fond of them. But they're also part of a systemic viewpoint that devalues people based on a particular class membership. GMG ^talk 14:58, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

This. Implicit misandry without any "I hate men" is also misandry.--Reprarina (talk) 11:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

These are the types of claims that should be attributed. Wikipedia shouldn't be telling people what issues are important, it should be telling people who thinks what's important and why. Trying to use Wikipedia to say "this issue is worse than that one" is textbook POV pushing. And Wikieditor662, keep in mind that it's still edit warring if you ask other people to do it on your behalf, and it's not a good idea to dodge restrictions like that be enlisting others. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:16, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you all for your responses, please allow me to address them:

@Remsense @GreenMeansGo If there are reliable sources on a topic giving opposing views, and you claim that one is a minority view, wouldn't the responsibility of proof fall on you? Either way, I tried to find information as to whether scholars have a consensus on the severity of misandry. There is only one thing I found in regards to that:

1) "Misandry is a very general and very contested term" - Excerpt from Sutton, Robbie M., et al. "The false and widespread belief that feminists are misandrists." (Please note the title isn't related to the issue, as it's about whether misandry is a big issue, not whether feminists are misandrist.)

Note that this was in regards to what the consensus is about Misandry. I can also show you what individual scholars think of Misandry, but again, this may not necessarily represent the consensus:

"Whether you define misandry as “hatred” or “contempt,” which is … First, misandry is a major

problem for men and must not be …"

Source: NathaNsoN, Paul, and KatheriNe K. YouNg. "Misogyny versus Misandry: From" Comparative Suffering" to Inter-Sexual Dialogue." New Male Studies 3.3 (2014).

"Mitigation of misogyny and misandry is crucial"

Source: Oparah, J. S., and Mary Ndubuisi Fidelis. "Misogyny and Misandry: Reasons and Mitigating Strategies in the Sample of Antenatal Patients in Tertiary Health Facilities in Owerri Municipal Imo State, Nigeria." International Journal of Human Kinetics, Health and Education 5.1 (2019).

These are some of the areas of text I found from google scholar; I'm sure there's plenty more. But except for the one excerpt stating that Misandry is a general and contested term (they may be talking about the general population, so I'm not even sure if that counts), I couldn't find anything about what the consensus is, but it appears to be a nuanced issue amongst scholars from what I see.

As for the WP:ONUS, some other options would be to only compare it to misogyny (for example what @Barnards.tar.gz suggested, although that example specifically would also require source/s), to mention that it's the counterpart of misogyny but not compare it, or just not mention misandry at all.

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@Hob Gadling I think Binkstrenet did when he said "misogyny has a few thousand years of terrible mistreatment of women, while misandry is about 1 percent of that, as it is a recent accusation"

-

@Thebiguglyalien In the first part of your sentence, were you referring to where it says Misandry is a minor issue when you were talking about POV pushing?

And as for asking people to do the edit on my behalf, I meant after a consensus was reached, I promise it wasn't my intention to escalate an edit war. I apologize if I worded that statement badly.

-

Wikieditor662 (talk) 03:03, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

New Male Studies is a journal sponsored by the foundation for male studies. The about us page of the foundation includes PragerU and random TED talk videos.

International Journal of Human Kinetics is not a journal really about human sociology, and is published by a random department in the university of nigeria.

These don't pass muster for reliable and due sourcing. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:35, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I quite specifically pointed to evidence that this position is in the great majority, and am not sure how you missed that. Remsense ‥ 论 03:38, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

The sentence could certainly be worded more impartially. That said, typing a phrase such as "misandry is a major problem" into any search engine is going to return biased results. Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young are religious scholars whose writings about misandry are outside their field of expertise and have been harshly critiqued by topic experts.^[3]^[4]^[5] Their views are extremely WP:UNDUE if not outright WP:FRINGE. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:16, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

@Bluethricecreamman I thought the information on google scholar was reliable, perhaps I was wrong. That's unfortunate, it means getting reliable sources is a little more difficult. Are you aware of any other easy ways to find reliable sources?

@Remsense are you referring to the misandry myth title? As far as I'm aware that's in regards to the viewpoint that feminism is misandrist, so it might be talking about a specific part of misandry rather than all of it.

@Sangdeboeuf I didn't type that in, I typed in things like "misandry" and "what do scholars think of misandry" and "is misandry a problem" into google scholar, but now I'm noticing that also may not be reliable as @Bluethricecreamman so I'm trying to figure out where else I can check

Wikieditor662 (talk) 04:21, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Not every source on Google Scholar is reliable. For scholarly sources, check if the journal is peer-reviewed and is well-respected by others. The journals you posted were easy to investigate with a quick google search to see who were sponsoring them, or if they were predatory. Please see also WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:DUE. You need to find sourcing that is due, not the first sourcing that validates your point of view. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:39, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Alright, here are some things I found from what I believe are peer-reviewed articles (and I searched misandry and clicked on whatever I saw). These are some different perspectives I found on it:

The psychology of women quarterly (the misandry myth) shows different sides to the issue (I'll highlight the specific parts).

On one side: "some feminists have claimed that misandry is a legitimate, even necessary aspect of the movement. Their argument is that bad feelings toward men are rational responses to men's hatred and mistreatment of women and that more positive or dispassionate responses would only undermine women's motivation to bring about social change

On the other: "On the other hand, there are reasons to think that feminists may harbor positive attitudes toward men. Many feminists disown misandry and even advocate for men and boys." (They later elaborate on this by stating "Feminists have driven forward significant changes in men's favor (Courtenay, 2000) including the repeal of sexist drinking laws (Plank, 2019) and laws that define rape in terms that exclude assaults in which men are victims (Cohen, 2014; Javaid, 2016). Feminists have also advocated for reforms that mean the burden of front-line combat duties and dangerous occupations are now open to women and therefore no longer borne alone by men (Soules, 2020). These phenomena weigh against the conclusion that in general, feminists are motivated by negative attitudes toward men.")

Interestingly enough, the article Hating Misandry will free you? Valerie Solanas in Paris or the discursive politics of misandry argues, if I understand correctly, that a certain type of misandry can even be a good thing. If I'm correct, that article (and others) seems to imply that the term misandry has had a major influence on feminism and dissuaded many people from becoming feminists in fear of being called misandrist. These articles seemed to try to counter that notion, but the notion's existence itself shows that at least the concept of misandry is a major issue.

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I'm pretty sure these sources are reliable and prove that it's a nuanced issue, but I apologize in advance if I made some sort of mistake. Wikieditor662 (talk) 23:19, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

might be worth inclusion depending on what is added in and where. I have no clue about this subject matter. try WP:BRD with these new changes, and if you are reverted, engage in discussion on the article talk page. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:54, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

What do you think about Crime & Delinquency? A recent study in the journal found significant level of both implicit and explicit misandry in the criminal justice system.--Reprarina (talk) 12:03, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

Assuming misandry needs to be mentioned at all in the Misogyny article, then I'd go with others' suggestion to attribute the opinions of relevant scholars. Copying from the Misandry article, we could say something like: Marc A. Ouellette argues in International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities that "misandry lacks the systemic, transhistoric, institutionalized, and legislated antipathy of misogyny".^[1] Anthropologist David Gilmore argues that misogyny is a "near-universal phenomenon" and that there is no male equivalent.^[6] —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:51, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Seems good to me. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah Sangdeboeuf has the right of it. And do please avoid the PragerU pseudo-journal. They aren't a real university. Simonm223 (talk) 21:04, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Let me add what the peer reviewed article mentioned: Marc A. Ouellette argues in International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities that "misandry lacks the systemic, transhistoric, institutionalized, and legislated antipathy of misogyny".^[1] Anthropologist David Gilmore argues that misogyny is a "near-universal phenomenon" and that there is no male equivalent.^[6] At the same time, the Psychology of Women Quarterly in the article the Misandry Myth states that many feminists disown Misandry and advocate against it. Is this good to go? And if we reached consensus, can I add it? Wikieditor662 (talk) 00:59, 16 January 2025 (UTC) Wikieditor662 (talk) 00:59, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd argue that misandry doesn't need to be mentioned in the misogyny article, there's a link to misandry on the bottom among related articles and I think that's enough. TurboSuperA+ (talk) 10:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Are you sure the two aren't connected and don't influence each other? Wikieditor662 (talk) 04:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

if major texts discussing misogyny do not also talk significantly about misandry, then we cannot include it due to WP:DUE.

It technically does not matter if it is obvious anyone thinks they are connected, WP:OR means we have to find sourcing that backs it up...

If there are minor texts talking about both somehow, then maybe thats an auxiliary article... Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Well, there are major texts discussing misandry which also talk significantly about misogyny, does that count? Wikieditor662 (talk) 05:08, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

... i mean you can debate it in the talk page. im not a topic expert on it, but i think folks who watch that page, myself included, would probably want a text that discusses misogyny to spend a bit of time on misandry for it to be considered due for more than a mention in a see also. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:34, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Connected and influencing one another are two different things. They are in the same category, this is reflected by the "Related" link at the bottom of the article.

To claim they influence one another WP:RS is needed. TurboSuperA+ (talk) 05:57, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

So is it ok if I remove the part that talks about Misandry on the Misogyny page? Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:44, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

No. You'd need go get consensus at Talk:Misogyny to do that, and I think that is unlikely to happen. MrOllie (talk) 22:46, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Given @TurboSuperA+'s reasoning, why is it unlikely to happen? Wikieditor662 (talk) 23:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Because finding one person who sort of agrees with you on this noticeboard is not a substitute for gathering consensus support on the article's talk page. MrOllie (talk) 23:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Then should I go to the Misogyny page and seek consensus between removing mention of misandry and changing to the phrases mentioned earlier here? Wikieditor662 (talk) 23:56, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

The answer to that question is a few lines above, but at least it is a better option than editing the article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:33, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Ouellette, Marc (2007). "Misandry". In Flood, Michael; et al. (eds.). International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities. Routledge. pp. 442–443. ISBN 978-1-1343-1707-3.
^ Synnott, Anthony (October 6, 2010). "Why Some People Have Issues With Men: Misandry". Psychology Today. Misandry is everywhere, culturally acceptable, even normative, largely invisible, taught directly and indirectly by men and women, blind to reality, very damaging and dangerous to men and women in different ways and de-humanizing.
^ Allan, Jonathan A. (2016). "Phallic Affect, or Why Men's Rights Activists Have Feelings". Men and Masculinities. 19 (1): 22–41. doi:10.1177/1097184X15574338. ISSN 1097-184X – via The Wikipedia Library. {{cite journal}}: Wikipedia Library link in |url= (help)
^ Chunn, Dorothy E. (2007). "Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men". Canadian Journal of Family Law. 23 (1): 93. ISSN 0704-1225. ProQuest 228237479.
^ Carver, T. F. (2003). "Review: Spreading Misandry: the teaching of contempt for men in popular culture". International Feminist Journal of Politics. 5: 480–481. hdl:1983/befd2fcf-8700-46c3-b7c5-aa6caab0e5fd. ISSN 1468-4470.
^ ^a ^b Gilmore, David G. (2001). Misogyny: The Male Malady. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 10–13. ISBN 978-0-8122-0032-4. Cite error: The named reference "Gilmore p10" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

Water fluoridation

WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE and WP:POVPUSH in the article/section: Water fluoridation.

I have added this as it was first mentioned above.

There is also a lot of WP:LAWYER, one user against all. --Julius Senegal (talk) 21:44, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

Putting aside the provenance of the sources that are being cited, the way they're placed in the leading paragraphs is ruining the appearance of the article and putting too much weight on individual studies. Recon rabbit 16:08, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice here. --Hipal (talk) 23:50, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

Carnivore diet

New red account on the talk-page of the carnivore diet repeatedly requesting to add this self-reported questionnaire to the article [2]. The questionnaire is a primary source that took most of its data from a carnivore diet Facebook group. It fails WP:MEDRS. Veg Historian (talk) 03:19, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Sex differences in intelligence (again)

This article was last discussed here in February/March of last year. That discussion hinged on a brand-new account pushing against the scientific consensus for gender parity in general intelligence. It quickly turned into a WP:1AM situation and the account disappeared for nearly a year.

Recently we saw another brand-new account appear on the talk page, making largely the same arguments. This editor was given a 1-week block for edit warring on Monday. But then today we saw the return of the account from last February/March to take up the mantle for the currently-blocked account.

I have engaged with the returning account as far as I believe AGF requires. The returning account, however, refuses to be WP:SATISFIED. Experienced editors are invited to join the conversation at Talk:Sex differences in intelligence#Claim not matching source or simply keep an eye out for disruptive edits. Generalrelative (talk) 21:05, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

This discussion is misplaced in the context of broader claims about sex differences. My edit was a simple, factual clarification of the 2022 meta-analysis, specifically noting that it only involved school-aged children, which is explicitly stated in multiple sections of the manuscript. The edit was reverted without sufficient reasoning or evidence. The so-called 'compromise' introduced a significant deviation from the original text, which only added confusion and misrepresentation of the study's conclusions. My goal here is not to challenge the broader discourse on sex differences but to ensure accuracy in the representation of this particular study AndRueM (talk) 21:44, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

SPI engaged? Simonm223 (talk) 13:40, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Someone has already opened one, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/AndRueM --Aquillion (talk) 15:41, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

Jonathan Bernier

Is this WP:FRINGE or WP:UNDUE? [3] tgeorgescu (talk) 20:47, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

I'm not going to judge whether it is or isn't fringe but for something as culturally and historically significant as the New Testament one minor scholar's unique opinion should never be given that much due weight on the main article. Definitely undue weight. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Sure, I mentioned shortening the description over undue weight in the talk page as well. Maurice Casey and James Crossley also argued for early datings like Bernier as well, so I would not describe it as an extremely unique opinion. This review mentions the book had a strong press release, with endorsements from the notable Chris Keith among others. Silverfish2024 (talk) 01:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Early dating is not necessarily fringe since Casey and Crossley are actually atheists and relatively recent scholars that argue for this. Chris Keith is a notable scholar too. I think this is just a minority position at the moment and can be represented in the encyclopedia with attribution or respective weight. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:05, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your input @Ramos1990. I think adding a shorter description on earlier datings is a good idea. It is indeed a minority position, but significant. Silverfish2024 (talk) 22:23, 26 January 2025 (UTC)

Since when does atheism disqualify anybody from anything? This sounds like you want to redefine "reliable" as "agrees with me". --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:22, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

The fact that Casey and Crossley are reputable scholars who publish with academic publishers like T&T Clark and are associated with institutions like Cambridge makes them highly reliable sources. My uneducated guess is that @Ramos1990 noted their atheism to refute any accusations of bias. Silverfish2024 (talk) 09:51, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Early dating for the New Testament literature has traditionally been advocated by predominantly conservative Evangelicals and apologists. The point about atheist (and presumably critical) scholars advocating for such positions in recent years is not intended to disqualify atheists, but to argue that such ideas perhaps should not be brushed off as being fringe, though (which should be highlighted) still a minority position. Divus303 (talk) 12:59, 27 January 2025 (UTC)

Cosmological decade

Up for deletion, I'm looking at it and wondering whether this is a pop-sci fringe notion. I do see it discussed but it, well, sounds off-the-wall. Mangoe (talk) 03:37, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps a bit of OR. The source that is online does not mention "decade", and the terms used as the names of ages in the article are not used that way in the source. Donald Albury 14:05, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

WSJ article on Tulsi Gabbard

Tulsi Gabbard (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Science of Identity Foundation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Qnet (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
As a Rising Political Star, Gabbard Paid to Mask Her Sect’s Ties to Alleged Scheme, The Wall Street Journal, Jan 28, 2025

Note that Qnet is a subsidiary of QI Group, both are are mentioned in the WSJ article.

Quoting the WSJ article:

Gabbard, a former House member who is now President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, was raised in the Science of Identity Foundation, a sect tied to a direct-marketing firm accused of running a pyramid scheme in several countries. Neither Gabbard, the sect nor the firm, QI Group, wanted the relationships scrutinized.
Gabbard’s campaign paid Washington, D.C.,-based Potomac Square Group for the PR cleanup, trying to mask the connections. But the operation was directed by a Science of Identity follower—and longtime Gabbard adviser—who sits on the board of a QI subsidiary.
...
Potomac worked to obscure longstanding connections between Gabbard and Butler, as well as between QI and Science of Identity, according to documents reviewed by the Journal and a person familiar with the matter. Potomac targeted journalists who had conducted research into the groups, for instance, writing an email to a magazine editor questioning the credentials of a reporter working on a related article.

I'm starting a discussion here, given the fringe nature of Science of Identity Foundation and Qnet. Recommendations for a better venue would be appreciated.

I'm concerned that the "PR cleanup" may be impacting the three articles. --Hipal (talk) 21:13, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Vladimir Bukovsky and the Russian hacker conspiracy

WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE and WP:POVPUSH in the article/section: Vladimir Bukovsky#Child pornography case

Attachment therapy

Old-timers may remember the LTA case involving attachment therapy, a group of variously pseudoscientific, inadequately supported, and often harmful (e.g. Candace Newmaker) treatments for children based on terms from attachment theory (which is also the basis for the much more evidence based attachment-based psychotherapy). There was a long campaign to whitewash the fringe treatments on Wikipedia and harass critics back in the mid-00s. "Attachment therapy" is thus a grouping of treatments based on a shared vocabulary and varying degrees of inadequate science. The confusion with real attachment theory is by design, of course, but there is a valid point raised on the talk page that putting the bad treatments as the main article title "attachment therapy" means people interested in the evidence-based attachment-based psychotherapy get confused. I'm sympathetic to this, and to the idea that "attachment therapy" should disambiguate between the two.

Here's where I'm hoping to draw on FTN expertise: what disambiguator makes sense for this catch-all term that includes harmful pseudoscience, but also treatments that simply don't have a lot of evidence or aren't well connected to attachment theory? Is there an analogous case on Wikipedia?

Discussion is here, but it mostly relates to a particular page move and searching for an alternative solution: Talk:Attachment_therapy#Confusion_with_Attachment-based_Therapy_article. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:29, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Whatever titles the discussion decides on, maybe it would be helpful to add an explanatory note at the top of the pseudo article, like was done for panspermia. It has a hatnote:

This article is about the fringe theory that life permeates the universe and gave rise to life on Earth. For the mainstream hypothesis that the organic building-blocks of life originated in space, see Pseudo-panspermia.

Schazjmd (talk) 20:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

There was a hatnote like that. Nevertheless, the Attachment therapy article receives 5,000 pageviews, while Attachment-based therapy receives 300 and Attachment-based psychotherapy receives 3. "Attachment therapy," better called "controversial attachment therapies" (which I have proposed on the Talk Page) were a set of therapies which all collapsed about 20 years ago. There are many, many attachment therapies in use today, some of which are well researched. The vast majority of people interested in the topic want to learn about effective therapeis. The pageviews show they are fully thwarted, even with the hatnote. This is the main problem, IMO. ConflictScience (talk) 21:04, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

"The vast majority of people interested in the topic want to learn about effective therapeis." Maybe, but Petscop (a horror series based on the pseudoscience) also gets about 5,000 views per day. Some people use Wikipedia for functional research, some treat it like Snopes, and some folks are just here to read about tragedies and nonsense. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:56, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I was wondering about that, thanks. It's possible the article is of great interest to fringe groups. The Attachment measures article gets about 1,500 views per month. I think/hope information about attachment therapies should have broader appeal. PAmountainbeach (talk) 15:10, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

It's troubling that one of the participants in the discussion has a financial interest in an attachment-based therapy/mediation firm.[8] Although attachment-based therapy is evidence-based, and needs to be properly differentiated from the harmful pseudoscience of attachment therapy, the editorial process should not be contaminated with WP:COI and WP:ORGNAME issues. 2600:4040:53AC:F000:1493:1783:DFB0:76AB (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

You misunderstand. I am not a therapist. ConflictScience (talk) 21:07, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I didn't say you were a therapist, I said that you have a financial interest in a firm that benefits from differentiating the two modalities. You need to review WP:COI and refrain from editing articles directly. 2600:4040:53AC:F000:1493:1783:DFB0:76AB (talk) 21:16, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Any COI seems pretty remote to me, but if you want to discuss it the place to do so is WP:COIN. Please remember to log in. I do agree ConflictScience should change his username to something that isn't the name of an organization. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:22, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know about that. ConflictScience (talk) 21:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

RFKJR

There is an RfC on the first sentence of his page. DolyaIskrina (talk) 20:53, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Puberty blockers in children

Is the medical recommendation that puberty blockers shouldn't be prescribed to children (outside of medical research) WP:FRINGE?

Gender dysphoria in children#Management spends the vast majority of its section explaining that puberty blockers are recommended for treating children and does not even mention an opposing view. Puberty blocker#Research status and Cass Review#Social transition and puberty blockers are two more examples of articles that treat this as a WP:FRINGE perspective, giving significant weight to the academic consensus that endorses puberty blockers in children. Likewise, Transgender health care misinformation#United Kingdom (a WP:Good article) spends most of its section arguing against the Cass Review.

Splitting this out from the above discussion on Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine since it's more productive to debate fringe theories rather than fringe organizations. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Comment Those pages do not describe the position that puberty blockers should not be used as fringe. Those pages report the criticism of that view. That is not the same thing. Being a minority view among experts isn't the same as being fringe. So it's really not clear what action you think should be taken. OsFish (talk) 03:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

That statement unqualified is very transparently WP:FRINGE because of precocious puberty.

I suspect you mean puberty blockers shouldn't be prescribed to children as treatment for gender dysphoria. That one is IMO WP:FRINGE/ALT: you can see it advocated by real doctors but the consensus of the field is still clearly against it. WPATH and the Endocrine Society, the two big WP:MEDORGs in the space, both explicitly say that puberty blockers are appropriate as part of treatment for gender dysphoria, and so do most big national WP:MEDORGs in relevant fields. And even the ones that don't say that mostly say something wishy-washy or equivocal rather than outright saying they shouldn't be used. Loki (talk) 03:53, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

You're correct about my intended meaning. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 04:04, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

It's worthwhile pointing out that Hilary Cass disagrees that puberty blockers should not be used. The Cass report wants further research. She confirms that position more clearly in an interview here. I think it's very important, if people cite the Cass Final Review, that they actually refer to what it says, and not make it stand for a rather more extreme (and fringe) position. This is something that has also plagued the RFC above this section.OsFish (talk) 04:23, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Regarding your intended meaning, given the definition of FRINGE in the lead sentence at WP:FRINGE, it cannot be said to be FRINGE outright. It might be minority opinion, even fringe depending on what you consider the universe of pollable opinion on the question, and in some contexts, even medical ones, it may be majority opinion. The whole field is undergoing a lot of ferment lately, including a more cautious approach recommended by the medical establishment just in the last year or two in certain countries, such as in the UK, Sweden, and Australia, where the view you express is probably majority opinion, based on a "too soon, more research needed"-kind of attitude currently, but it is not categorical and there are always exceptions. Note that this is a completely separate issue from whether it is true or not, but that's something Wikipedia is not in the business of deciding. By the way: feel free to add a few words to your section heading to make your intent clearer if you wish. (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 04:32, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Is the medical recommendation that puberty blockers shouldn't be prescribed to children [for gender dysphoria] (outside of medical research) WP:FRINGE? - I appreciate you taking the initiative to start this and want to help refine your question. I agree that it's more productive to debate fringe theories rather than fringe organizations, but my issue is that's not a theory so much as a specific healthcare policy - it may sometimes be enacted by governments, medical institutions, or both, and revolves around an underlying medico-ethical question. Historically speaking:

Puberty blockers emerged as a middle ground between kids wanting to just get on hormones / medically transition and doctors who thought they were too young to decide until 16-18 or so - but decided that the ethical issue of making them go through an explicitly unwanted semi-irreversible puberty and denying their autonomy justified halting unwanted pubertal changes, though not starting wanted ones until months-years of waiting and assessments.
These days, medical/medico-ethical consensus mostly follows the gender-affirming care model which built on that - that transgender identities are not pathological and that care should be individualized based on pubertal development / informed consent / the minor's wishes and bodily autonomy. Trans kids don't necessarily have to start on blockers if old enough, or wait til 16 to start hormones.
That first model was the medical consensus, and is now much less accepted though still kinda around, while the second supplanted it and is now the mainstream (and unlike the former, supported by mainstream international human rights groups and watchdogs). The medical recommendation that neither puberty blockers or hormones should be given, and trans kids should be required to go through an incongruent puberty is FRINGE and a regression to decades ago. If it's justified with "unless they sign up for a research trial", it's less FRINGE, but from a medico-ethical / human rights perspective it's still got issues. As the Council of Europe's LGBT healthcare report put it There are ethical implications of only offering treatment to a small group of patients, potentially violating the fundamental ethical principles governing research ... as for many young people the only way to receive treatment is to participate in the trial, therefore calling into question whether consent can be constituted as free and informed in these situations[9]

So if we are to have some kind of RFC (I'm assuming this is an RFCBEFORE), the overarching question should be something along the lines of Is the view that transgender children should go through an incongruent puberty WP:FRINGE? / Is the view that adolescents are incapable of providing informed consent to gender affirming hormone treatments or puberty blockers for gender dysphoria WP:FRINGE? Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 07:11, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

No There's two parts for this - is the evidence supporting their use weak, and does that mean they should be restricted to clinical trials.

For the former, we have at least 5 independent systematic reviews in the last five years:

NICE 2020 (precipitated the Cass Review)
Thompson et al 2023
Zepf et al 2023 (Update to the NICE methodology with more recent papers)
Taylor et al 2024 (part of Cass Review)
Miroshnychenko et al 2025 (Part of a series of reviews commissioned by SEGM)

All of these concur the evidence is weak. The adolescent chapter in WPATH's SOC8 states they could not do a systematic review due to lack of evidence and that A short narrative review is provided instead, ie a lower standard of evidence.

For the latter, we have:

Sweden restricted use to clinical trials
Finland restricted use to two centralised clinics as part of a research programme
NHS England's decision to restrict usage to clinical trials after the Cass Review
The UK Government (initially Tory, then endorsed by the subsequent Labour government) decision to apply the same restrictions to private prescriptions
Scotland following suit, saying Based on the latest evidence, the specialists in this field of medicine developed a consensus that is that it is considered no longer safe to continue to prescribe these medicines without further evidence developed within the clinical trial settings that would normally apply to all other medicines.
The commission on human medicines saying they were an unacceptable safety risk until a clinical trial had been carried out.

Meanwhile this 2024 systematic review investigated existing guidelines and found them weak and circular, stating The findings from this review, therefore, raise questions about the credibility of currently available guidance

These are not fringe positions - this is healthcare in a contentious area becoming more cautious due to a lack of evidence.

As described in the BMJ, there is a steadily widening difference of opinion between medical bodies, however the state of our articles on these and other related subjects does not neutrally describe this. Void if removed (talk) 09:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

No, it is certainly not fringe. I would even say that it is becoming mainstream in the last couple of years. It is the health policy in many developed countries now that puberty blockers are either outright banned, or strictly limited to trials or exceptional situations. [10] [11] For example, the UK fully banned puberty blockers. Another problem is that WPATH guidelines that many countries initially followed turned out to be not evidence based: [12] [13] [14] Now these guidelines are being rejected. Ireland has become the most recent one to do it: [15] A few days ago Australia has also announced a review of their standards of care, which I expect will result in a similar restriction or ban: [16] In addition, there has never been a scholarly consensus that puberty blockers were the best way to treat dysphoria in children. For example, the European Academy of Paediatrics stated that 'The fundamental question of whether biomedical treatments (including hormone therapy) for gender dysphoria are effective remains contested'. [17] So I don't think we can say that the medical recommendation that puberty blockers shouldn't be prescribed to children is fringe. It is not an opinion held by a tiny minority, but the prevailing view in many countries backed by recent researches. Sean Waltz O'Connell (talk) 11:18, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

No not Fringe This is the current position of major National Health authorities (very high on WP:MEDORG) such as Finland, Sweden, and England because their use is not supported by EBM for example Sweden said “the studies conducted to date are small, uncontrolled observational studies providing low quality evidence that the treatments have the desired effect, and that we have very little knowledge about their safety in the long term.” Finland said “as far as minors are concerned, there are no medical treatment that can be considered evidence-based” England said “puberty blockers are not available to children and young people for gender incongruence or gender dysphoria because there is not enough evidence of safety and clinical effectiveness.” In addition WHO will not issue guidelines for children because “the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer term outcomes of gender affirming care" Evathedutch (talk) 17:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

That's the exact sort of statement I called out as "wishy-washy" above. Do you have any examples of big WP:MEDORGs saying explicitly they think puberty blockers should not be used? Or just "we don't know" or "the evidence is low quality"? Loki (talk) 19:50, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

UK Department of Health and Social Care Evathedutch (talk) 03:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

The Cass Review was a "we don't know (so we're stopping until we get more evidence)". Loki (talk) 16:46, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Whether or not transgender adolescents should be prescribed puberty blockers is an expression of opinion, not of objective fact, and so it may not be appropriate to describe this as a theory. That being said, the overwhelming majority of medical organizations support their use for treating gender dysphoria. Take the recent Amici Curiae to the US Supreme Court where the APA, AAP and AMA among many other all expressed their support for the use of GAC for treatment of gender dysphoria:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-477/323964/20240903155151548_23-477%20tsac%20Brief%20of%20Amici%20Curiae%20AAP%20et%20al..pdf

For this reason, as a medical recommendation, I would consider this WP:FRINGE/ALT HenrikHolen (talk) 19:12, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

So my vote is for Fringe/Alt HenrikHolen (talk) 19:17, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Certainly not, given that the nonpartisan regulatory bodies of progressive countries such as Sweden, Denmark, France, and the UK have considered the contraindications to be sufficiently compelling to warrant its curtailment. Btw seems most of the arguments on this so far are US-centric. See Evathedutch’s comment for related details. Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 21:39, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
Of the countries you have listed, only the UK has stopped the use of puberty blockers outside medical trials, with France recently publishing a review which was strongly in support of GAC:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929693X24001763#tbl0001

Moreover, the UK ban was the result of an order by the Health Secretary (Victoria Atkins and later Wes Streeting) and then by a vote in parliament. This was not decided by regulatory bodies. HenrikHolen (talk) 23:08, 4 February 2025 (UTC)
Actually, The National Academy of Medicine of France is quite skeptical of the use of puberty blockers and advises for "a great medical caution" in children and adolescents. [18]

The medical demand is accompanied by an increasing supply of care, in the form of consultations or treatment in specialized clinics, because of the distress it causes rather than a mental illness per se. Many medical specialties in the field of pediatrics are concerned. First of all psychiatry, then, if the transidentity appears real or if the malaise persists, endocrinology gynecology and finally surgery are concerned. However, a great medical caution must be taken in children and adolescents, given the vulnerability, particularly psychological, of this population and the many undesirable effects, and even serious complications, that some of the available therapies can cause. In this respect, it is important to recall the recent decision (May 2021) of the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm to ban the use of hormone blockers. Although, in France, the use of hormone blockers or hormones of the opposite sex is possible with parental authorization at any age, the greatest reserve is required in their use, given the side effects such as impact on growth, bone fragility, risk of sterility, emotional and intellectual consequences and, for girls, symptoms reminiscent of menopause. As for surgical treatments, in particular mastectomy, which is authorized in France from the age of 14, and those involving the external genitalia (vulva, penis), their irreversible nature must be emphasized.
JonJ937 (talk) 11:46, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Neither fringe nor unfringe per HenrikHolen and Loki. Absolute general statement is not useful to work with for definition of fringe, especially for medicine. Loki pointed out Precocious puberty is the archetypical example for majority of puberty blocker usage. some literature has identified its usage in multiple other uses such as Endometriosis, etc. for decades with no long-lasting side effects.[19]

an analogous statement would be "abortion has medical harms for women"... in general, not mainstream by longshot, but maybe exists some case study or some specific condition where a specific abortion drug could be contraindicated. many abortion procedures for vast majority are well studied for decades. That an absolute, poorly specified statement is not necessarily fringe does not make it mainstream or applicable for most cases. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:51, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

No, not fringe. This is the stance of many health authorities around the world, Europe in particular. To say it is fringe means to say all those authorities are fringe, or support fringe theories. Plus, many medical experts and professional unions question the benefits of puberty blockers too. That is hardly fringe.--JonJ937 (talk) 11:01, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Poorly constructed question Per Bluethricemcreamman this question is acting as something of a lampshade. While there may be circumstances under which the prescription of any given medicine to any given child may be counter indicated, the broadest use case of these drugs is Precocious puberty - the treatment of which is necessarily one given to children. Attempts to carve out that puberty blockers somehow become magically harmful if given to a trans child are largely grounded in innuendo and "we don't really know" statements rather than evidence. Simonm223 (talk) 17:05, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
No, it is not fringe and currently a matter of lively debate in the international medical community. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 16:27, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Comment (Edited on February 8) As noted in my other comment about WPATH, its guidelines (including puberty blockers) are explicitly endorsed in The Thai Handbook of Transgender Healthcare Services (and the linked paper describes their use by Thai adolescents in addition to other elements of hormone therapy). Less than two weeks ago, Thailand moved to radically expand access by budgeting free hormone therapy for 200,000 transgender people. Likewise, South African 2021 guidelines fully endorse the use of puberty blockers:Not all TGD adolescents want to access puberty suppression medication, HT or gender-affirming surgery,[18] but refusal of GAHC will most likely do harm and lead to mental health challenges, for example severe anxiety, depression and/or suicidality.[1,208] PsySSA’s Sexuality and Gender Division (SGD) released the following statement in 2021: ‘The SGD thus stands firmly in support of the statement from WPATH and others, noting that irreversible harm could come to young people denied puberty blockers. As always, our first guiding ethical principle should be to ‘do no harm’. In this instance, harm is surely to come, and this harm is preventable.’[66] The South African Society of Psychiatrists stated: ‘For parents whose children display gender non-conforming attributes and behaviours, or state that they wish to transition to their preferred gender … it was vital to understand and accept that this was not “just a phase”’ Thailand and South Africa are both countries with practically the same population size as the United Kingdom. Surely Thai and South African policy moves should be considered to hold, at a minimum, equal weight to those from the UK, and far exceed in value those from much smaller countries like Sweden or Finland? InformationToKnowledge (talk) 20:32, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

Additional Comment: It seems like the title of this RFC could be clarified to "children and adolescents", since that appears to be the preferred terminology in the field (including in the WHO document cited in the comment below me.) It is also technically possible for some healthcare systems to support the use of puberty blockers for under-18s, but place age "floors" stricter than in other healthcare systems, although I'm unaware of specific examples. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 11:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

All of this is beside the point. If Thailand or South Africa allow puberty blockers, it does not make opposition to them elsewhere fringe. JonJ937 (talk) 17:02, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

The more international acceptance puberty blockers have, the more likely it is that opposition is fringe. Loki (talk) 20:28, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

No, it is not FRINGE. Could be a bad idea, could be a good idea. Might cause devastating, lifelong injury to children that can never be fully healed, and even result in self-harm, and worse. Might save children from a calamitous path causing regret, self-harm, and worse. Not WP:FRINGE, though. Mathglot (talk) 00:45, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
No, not fringe. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that its guideline on the health of trans and gender diverse people will not cover children or adolescents. [20] According to WHO: "the scope will cover adults only and not address the needs of children and adolescents, because on review, the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender affirming care for children and adolescents". WHO's position cannot be fringe, and they didn't find strong longer-term evidence base in favor of puberty blockers. Parker.Josh (talk) 10:17, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
Comment This is a misunderstanding of what WP:FRINGE is about. It is meant to be applied to factual claims rather than subjective value judgements. Asking whether banning puberty blockers is fringe is like asking whether saying that the Mets are better than the Yankees is fringe. Most reliable baseball publications would reject that statement, but that doesn't make it fringe because it's a position that is inherently based around one's personal preferences. Similarly, the question of whether puberty blockers should be banned or restricted depends on a subjective view of transgender issues, acceptable medical risk, etc. More specific factual claims regarding the affects of puberty blockers can be assessed as fringe or non-fringe in other fora. Partofthemachine (talk) 05:22, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
We have a number of RFCs on this topic with poorly formulated questions and I think this one is not better or worse than the others. For example, we have an RFC above on whether the organization called SEGM is fringe. This organization calls for restrictions on puberty blockers and surgery on minors in line with mainstream European medical guidelines. Many vote that SEGM is fringe for advocating for something that is not considered fringe. Clear contradiction. This board is about fringe theories. It is not clear what particular fringe theories SEGM promotes. Similarly, we have an RFC below on whether an organization called WPATH is a "gold standard" for research on trans healthcare, despite significant international disagreement, which is again a subjective judgment rather than an objective assessment of fringe status. I also think that If the purpose of this board is to assess "fringe theories," then discussions should actually be focused on specific ideas that are considered fringe, rather than general assessments of an organization’s standing or subjective labels like "gold standard", especially given how controversial and fast-evolving this area of healthcare is. JonJ937 (talk) 10:04, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
I would generally agree. If advocating against puberty blockers isn't fringe, gaining a consensus means editors should stop rejecting sources on that basis alone. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 13:26, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
The way this question has been constructed suggests those people advocating against puberty blockers don't want anyone to ever be prescribed them except in the context of medical research. No puberty blockers for precocious puberty. This question, to be properly framed, should have asked whether it is fringe to believe that prescribing puberty blockers is more harmful to trans youth than to cis youth. And, of course, that would be a much easier thing to answer as yes. Simonm223 (talk) 13:32, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

in line with mainstream European medical guidelines. - this phrasing implies the existence of fringe European medical guidelines. What would those be? Otherwise, it is either WP:WEASEL or simply meaningless. Likewise, significant international disagreement implies that there is a level of disagreement which is not significant. Consequently, one then has to ask what makes the current level of disagreement significant rather than insignificant (in the view of the editor using this phrase, that is), and what kind of an event would allow us to describe said disagreement as insignificant. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:38, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

I would like to use an analogy here. "Asking whether banning vaccines is fringe is like asking whether saying that the Mets are better than the Yankees is fringe. Most reliable baseball publications would reject that statement, but that doesn't make it fringe because it's a position that is inherently based around one's personal preferences. Similarly, the question of whether vaccines should be banned or restricted depends on a subjective view of epidemiological issues, acceptable medical risk, etc." I suspect the editor I'm replying to above would reject the meaning of this statement - so, what specifically makes the one they left different besides the bolded words? To use a different example, the claim that climate change would be good for humanity would also be a "subjective value judgement" according to the logic above - yet, I do not recall this board ever taking the position that it should not be considered fringe for that reason. InformationToKnowledge (talk) 17:47, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

Not Fringe per Mathglot and JonJ937. And per Partofthemachine, this is way too much of a subjective value judgment and the medical research is far too young and too mixed for us to make the call that medical research should override values on this issue. This is where the vaccine analogy breaks down for me - over where we are in the timeline. Vaccines have been around for over 200 years. Transgender issues have only been on the radar of many people in the first world for a very small number of years, and for much of the rest of the world they still aren't. And medication possibilities are further behind than that. Maybe someday we'll get to the point where the medical research, the public policies, and the public themselves are as nearly unified as they are on vaccines, but we're clearly not there now, as evidenced by these excruciatingly long threads. If we call puberty blockers for children FRINGE, or if we call the recommendation against them FRINGE, we will be both be making a value judgment, and choosing against the medical public policies of many medically well regarded countries. Davemc0 (talk) 06:06, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
They are many things that bug me with your comment, so I am going to address them separately:

- There are two different meanings of the word "value" conflated here. Any assessment that a claim is or is not WP:FRINGE is by essence a value statement, because it is an assessment of the room we are to give it in any given article. On the other hand, what we include or do not include has nothing to do with personal values being weighed against medical research, only about what WP:MEDRS say.

- The fact that "transgender issues" have been on the radar of "many people" only for a limited period of time is also irrelevant, since we are interested in what is on the radar of high quality academic sources, not recent media perceptions. As it turns out, you will easily find that quality studies on the matter go further back that "for a very small number of years".

- The vaccine analogy does not break down that easily, because the very point you make to discard it is blatantly untrue: there is a clear, dramatic misalignment between medical research, public policy and public perception of vaccines, and the gap between each of the three is widening at high speed. In addition, we are here to reflect academic consensus first and foremost, and when it does not align with the two others, to explain the misalignment, not to question the academic viewpoint.

- There is no such thing as a "medically well regarded countr[y]", and this perception has no bearing on what we are to report in this encyclopedia. This is a thing that keeps coming up again and again in this thread (boiling down to but what about Scandinavia) and I am baffled that this argument is being made at all since it is in complete contradiction with how we proceed in order to evaluate medical claims.

I am sorry if it feels like I am coming in hard on this, but yeah, in my opinion a lot going on here. Choucas Bleu 🐦‍⬛ 23:34, 12 February 2025 (UTC)
- I'm only talking about values as per Partofthemachine.

- Once there are two hundred years of medical research and practice on puberty blockers come talk to me.

- I agree that antivax is a growing, not shrinking mindset, and that's unfortunate. But it's orders of magnitude more aligned than transgender. And public policy is like 99% aligned on vaccines, and utterly unaligned on transgender.

Yes, there IS a lot going on here. So much that it would be utter hubris to think that a small handful of volunteer (I hope) Wikipedians should be making the call on what can and cannot be treated as encyclopedic for the whole English-speaking world in a health and wellness issue that is sometimes a matter of life and death. (Yeah, that was a bit melodramatic, but the point stands.) We need to humble ourselves and realize that this issue is nowhere near as cut-and-dried as actual fringe theories like the earth being flat. Thus, we need to let each statement be evaluated and debated on its own merits, and do so repeatedly as viewpoints, research, and values change. Closing this wide-open issue as FRINGE is precisely for the purpose of shortcutting debate on WP, which is unrealistic, given that the debate is still continuing throughout the medical, public policy, and popular presses.

Well, I can see that we will continue to disagree. I'm not persuaded by your message, but I think we can respect each others' views. Davemc0 (talk) 02:04, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
Can I be clear: your stance is based on there needing to be "two hundred years of medical research and practice" for a conclusion on any medical treatment to be considered valid. Is that right? OsFish (talk) 05:18, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
No. That takes my phrase out of its context of someone's vaccine analogy, which puts an extreme interpretation on it. That feels unfair to me. I've made my position as clear as I choose to. Peace. Davemc0 (talk) 17:19, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
In May 1933, the Nazis raided the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, founded 1919, and burned their library of books regarding transgender health care. Over the course of the next decade they engaged in a brutal crackdown on gender non-conforming people. Their actions are seen as having significantly set back research on trans healthcare. This is all to say, contrary to Davemc0, there is over 100 years of research into trans healthcare. This significantly predates effective influenza vaccines. Their chronology is just flatly wrong - and the only reason this isn't more immediately evident how wrong it is is that it took us nearly a century to recover from the last time we let fascists run healthcare. Simonm223 (talk) 17:28, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
Thank you Simon, that is what I was trying to encourage them to discover by themselves when saying "you will easily find that quality studies on the matter go further back that 'for a very small number of years'". However at this point it seems quite clear that any piece of research, history, or relevant WP policy will have no influence here, because a statement like "Once there are two hundred years of medical research and practice on puberty blockers come talk to me" is just so blatant that it is a clear admission that nothing could ever change their mind and that engaging is a waste of time. A sentence like that is where any remaining assumption of good faith dies, and I hope it is quite clear to anyone else who bothered reading this. Choucas Bleu 🐦‍⬛ 17:45, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

As a political opinion it is becoming mainstream in some countries. As a medical opinion, I would say that it is still fringe. The politicians and journalists promoting this view have not shifted the actual medical consensus, only the public perception of the medical consensus. --DanielRigal (talk) 23:26, 13 February 2025 (UTC)
There has never been a medical consensus on puberty blockers and there still isn't one. I doubt you can prove that organizations like the European Academy of Paediatrics, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the WHO, or the health authorities of all Scandinavian countries have taken a politically motivated stance. In fact, the evidence points to political interference in the WPATH protocols (the Rachel Levine controversy [21]). JonJ937 (talk) 10:14, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
Jon, please stop WP:BLUDGEONING by listing the same list of organizations that still don't support your point. Loki (talk) 19:33, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
I don't think that they disagree. And the burden of proof is on those who claim that the restrictions on puberty blockers in Europe are politically motivated. So far, none was provided. The sources state the contrary. For example, according to Forbes:

In Europe political divisions on this topic aren’t nearly as conspicuous as they are in the U.S. Rather, the debate is much more fact-based. An increasing number of countries have conducted systematic reviews of evidence to determine the benefits and risks of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. And the findings from these reviews—that the certainty of benefits is “very low”—have informed changes in policy regarding treatment of gender incongruence in minors. [22]

It is interesting that Forbes notes: "In the U.S., on the other hand, talk of introducing guardrails like the ones being incorporated in Europe is sometimes met with being branded “transphobic” or a “science denier.”" I believe this reflects the situation with SEGM in the U.S., where critical voices often face intense and unfair backlash. Politics should probably be split into a separate discussion, as they have no direct relevance to this thread. JonJ937 (talk) 11:03, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
Just a heads up: that's a Forbes Contributor column, so saying things like "Forbes notes" and "according to Forbes" is a misunderstanding. It's self-published, not written by Forbes staff, and not reviewed by Forbes staff. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:23, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
Fair point. I should have reviewed the guidelines on Forbes more thoroughly. This is another source with a perspective similar to the Forbes contributor. U.S. News & World Report:

Several countries, including traditionally more progressive nations like Sweden and Norway, are changing guidelines at least in part due to questions from some doctors about the risks of such procedures. The changes in Europe are occurring more often at the health care policy level initiated by medical professionals, rather than through new or adjusted laws pushed by legislators, and experts say they haven’t been politicized to the extent they have been in the U.S. [23]
JonJ937 (talk) 11:32, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I disagree. Even if you just look at what has been published by reputable medical journals in the last five years, it doesn't support the fringe claim. You can find a variety of medical positions on youth gender medicine. Evathedutch (talk) 21:46, 18 February 2025 (UTC)
Not fringe. At worst, it's an alternative theoretical formulation, at best it's the best-evidenced position amongst the highest quality MEDRS sources. It is important to note the difference between evidence-based medicine and consensus-based guidelines. The latter are what we see from (predominantly American) organisations like WPATH, the Endocrine Society, AAP, etc.. Those guidelines have been constructed through a process of doctors agreeing with each other. They are not intrinsically scientific. Under the evidence-based lens, the prevailing consensus of these orgs has been found lacking. And now, it is clear that consensus is shifting, led by Europe. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 11:40, 15 February 2025 (UTC)
Not fringe Some folk have commented on the role in precocious puberty as either an example of how the question is malformed or how these drugs could only be harmful in the minds of bigots (e.g. Attempts to carve out that puberty blockers somehow become magically harmful if given to a trans child are largely grounded in innuendo and "we don't really know" statements rather than evidence.) In fact, WP:MEDRS sources on precocious puberty do not call them "puberty blockers". Go look at the sources. The typical therapy for precocious puberty uses what they call GnRH analogs. It is only in the field of youth trans medicine that they are called "puberty blockers". These drugs have other uses too, including as chemotheraphy in hormone-encouraged cancers. So to turn that quote around Attempts to carve out that GnRH analogs, which are used to chemically castrate old men with terminal prostate cancer, with side effects including decreased appetite; arthralgia; bone pain; depression; dizziness; fatigue; gynaecomastia; headache; hepatic disorders; hot flush; hyperhidrosis; insomnia; mood altered; muscle weakness; nausea; paraesthesia; peripheral oedema; sexual dysfunction; testicular atrophy; and weight change somehow become magically harmless if given to a trans child... (I should note, I don't find the reverse claim compelling: the whole concept that a drug used for one condition is magically safe or equally harmful when used for a different purpose is stupid). As Void notes above, the overwhelming MEDRS evidence from systematic reviews is universally, without exception, that there is insufficient evidence to know if they are medically beneficial or medically harmful or know anything about long term effects. Into this void of evidence, activists on both sides of a culture war claim facts on shaky ground. Those making claims about puberty blockers having solid evidence of medical harm or solid evidence of medical benefit are in fact the ones on WP:FRINGE ground.

A decision made by health professionals in the absence of good evidence of harm/benefit doesn't become FRINGE just because different bodies make different choices. And as we see, those decisions can change over time. Unlike the lack of existence of bigfoot. Some editors may wish professionals made different choices but that doesn't make those choices FRINGE. Thalidomide was approved in the UK, West Germany, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada with unfortunate consequences. It was refused approval in the US and East Germany, with fortuitous consequences. The US position was not FRINGE. Just different. The skinny jabs are only approved for those with BMI > 30 (or a bit less + comorbid conditions). That's a decision made in the absence of evidence (there's no evidence they especiallly harm people who are overweight but not obese). If one country decided to lower or change the threshold, they don't mysteriously become FRINGE. Let's not make FRINGE "a viewpoint I and my activist sources strongly oppose". -- Colin°^Talk 20:08, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Poorly written question with no RFCBEFORE and unclear scope / Extreme minority/ALT view bordering on fringe - Assuming the RFCs question is whether puberty blockers shouldn't be prescribed to children [for gender dysphoria] (outside of medical research) is fringe. This RFC doesn't differentiate between legal bans and medical bans. It doesn't specify what the alternative treatment is- do we give some kids hormones and some blockers, or some kids blockers and some talk therapy? It doesn't even specify how these trials should take place - randomized control trials or observational studies.

Further, only 2 countries in the world, the UK (who criminalized receiving it privately) and Sweden (which did not), have limited puberty blockers to clinical trials - which has been pretty widely criticized in the field of trans healthcare and international governing bodies. The Council of Europe said that Inequalities in TSHC [Trans Specific Health Care] may be compounded by other socio-demographic factors including age. There are unique and fluctuating challenges for children and young people accessing TSHC across CoE member states. Major changes to the provision of healthcare and, in some countries, rollbacks, has led to concerning developments relating to TSHC for children and young people. ... There are ethical implications of only offering treatment to a small group of patients, potentially violating the fundamental ethical principles governing research (e.g. Council of Europe Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, concerning Biomedical Research (2005) Article 13 e: “the persons being asked to participate in a research project shall be informed [...] of their right to refuse consent or to withdraw consent at any time without being subject to any form of discrimination, in particular regarding the right to medical care”, 114 and Regulation (EU) No 536/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council Chapter v: “no undue influence…is exerted on subjects to participate in the clinical trial”, 115 ) as for many young people the only way to receive treatment is to participate in the trial, therefore calling into question whether consent can be constituted as free and informed in these situations.[24]

Is it FRINGE to say that gender dysphoria doesn't exist? Absolutely. Is it FRINGE to say that forcing children through an incongruent puberty won't cause lasting harm and irreversible changes? Once again, absolutely. Has the medical literature identified any other treatment for trans kids' gender dysphoria than gender-affirming care? Nope. Do MEDORGs around the world argue that PBs should be researched more? They all agree on that. Do they think this justifies limiting their use to clinical trials? The majority of the time, no. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 00:18, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

You can't complain there isn't an WP:RFCBEFORE when this isn't an RfC. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 04:55, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

No, it is not fringe.Despite any personal stance on the restrictions of puberty blockers, the fact that multiple national health authorities—including those in the UK, Sweden, Finland, and Norway—have formally reviewed the evidence and decided to limit their use to research settings significantly undermines the claim that this position is fringe. These decisions were not based on ideology but on systematic reviews that found the evidence for their safety and effectiveness to be weak. While organizations like WPATH and the Endocrine Society continue to endorse their use, WPATH’s guidelines have been widely criticized for relying on low-quality evidence. This is not simply a matter of differing medical opinions but a reflection of the broader issue of evidentiary strength. Several countries, after comprehensive analysis, have determined that the risks and uncertainties outweigh the benefits, leading them to shift toward prioritizing psychological support over medical intervention. These conclusions were reached through rigorous policy assessments by major health authorities, not through political or social bias. Since several countries have come to the same conclusion on their own, the assertion that banning puberty blockers is an outlier stance is not only incorrect but actually disprovable.--Colaheed777 (talk) 20:07, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Is being anti-trans WP:FRINGE?

As several people have pointed out, this seems like a poorly posed question that is not in-scope for this forum. --JBL (talk) 00:38, 21 February 2025 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Let's just cut to the heart of the issue above. Is denying that someone can be transgender a WP:FRINGE belief? For instance, denying that trans women are women, or the view that sex is immutable.

If so, how can we consistently use WP:Wikivoice to describe the correct view? For example, trans woman and woman correctly describe trans women as being women. However, gender-critical feminism does not directly explain in article voice that trans women are women. Likewise, adult human female could also benefit from putting this in wikivoice. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 04:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Anti-trans medical misinformation is WP:FRINGE, but just being anti-trans is a political belief and cannot be fringe, the same way scientific racism is WP:FRINGE but ordinary racism is not and cannot be WP:FRINGE. Unpopular beliefs are not automatically WP:FRINGE, they need to be relative to a field of knowledge that can be sourced.

I would say that it's a pretty clear consensus in the sources that talk about it that a trans woman is a kind of woman. I also think that the general effectiveness of HRT for gender transition is very well documented and denying that really would be WP:FRINGE. Loki (talk) 09:13, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Anti-trans medical misinformation

I think this is the key issue in all of the above RFCs and discussions, ie what is "anti-trans medical misinformation", and to what extent is it the job of Wikipedia editors to make that determination and pick the "right" answer? FRINGE is being used as a hammer to WP:RGW from what I can see.

We've strayed a very long way from FRINGE meaning things like holocaust denial and moon landing conspiracies when we start regarding evidence-based medicine as FRINGE because some people strongly dislike the conclusions arrived at, and condemn them with hyperbolic language.

Until the early 2010s, the notion that the correct approach for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria was to halt puberty in hopes of preventing development of undesired secondary sex characteristics was a marginal one indeed. It was a novel idea, with a limited evidence base, applied to a tiny number of patients after psychological assessment, enthusiastically endorsed in Boston in 2007 without the same level of gatekeeping, and then adopted by GIDS who failed to replicate the Dutch results.

When this was an emerging clinical approach, was it FRINGE? Or was it simply an emerging clinical approach? When GIDS expanded use without the same elements of gatekeeping as the Dutch Protocol, was this FRINGE, or simply a different clinical approach? When an independent service review found this to be lacking a solid evidence base and restricted the approach to clinical trials, this is not FRINGE, but emerging difference of opinion among clinicians.

It is not the job of editors to decide that one clinical approach in a hotly contested field with limited evidence is "right" and everyone else is "wrong" and go issue by issue cementing whatever editors believe to be the "correct" approach as the one true path, and everything else FRINGE. Frankly it smacks of an inability to separate differing medical opinions from the evident basket case that is US politics.

And:

I also think that the general effectiveness of HRT for gender transition is very well documented and denying that really would be WP:FRINGE

No, it would not be FRINGE, because things like "effectiveness" are value judgements with different meanings - do you mean physically effective or psychologically beneficial? By what metric? Over what timescale? Does this apply to all cohorts? Is psychological benefit even a valid aim? Some insist it is not. There are huge unresolved questions with very poor research on tiny numbers of people. Some self-report surveys, some limited followups, but with huge dropout rates and non-standardised metrics. Eg. pointing out that we simply don't know what the outcomes were for the adolescents who aged out of GIDS because of a refusal to cooperate with research by the adult clinics is not FRINGE, it is the truth.

Here's a recent systematic review on GAHT in under-26s:

The best available evidence reporting on the effects of GAHT in individuals with GD ranged from moderate to high certainty for cardiovascular events and low to very low certainty for the outcomes of GD, global function, depression, sexual dysfunction, BMD and death by suicide. We did not find evidence of sexual dysfunction in NMs. The evidence in this SR and meta-analysis does not exclude the possibility of benefit or harm upon receipt of GAHT. Prospective studies giving higher certainty evidence are needed to understand the short and long term effects of GAHT.

If you read the body, it finds small positive benefits in some cases, but with very low quality, high uncertainty and no clear determination of causal factor. When systematic reviews have this level of uncertainty and lack of evidence, the right approach is to present that uncertainty to the reader, not to insist on a single definitive answer and use FRINGE to dismiss anything to the contrary. Void if removed (talk) 10:50, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Anti-trans medical misinformation and worse have been running rampant in the topic area. This is just an attempt to clean up misinformation from providers of such like SEGM and Hilary Cass.Simonm223 (talk) 11:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

clean up misinformation from [...] Hilary Cass

A reminder that WP:BLP applies to talk pages. Void if removed (talk) 11:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Just stop. What I have said is perfectly well supported by the contents of this noticeboard. No need to WP:CRYBLP. Simonm223 (talk) 11:50, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

No, WP:BLPTALK does not apply to eg. saying that Hilary Cass publishes misinformation. From WP:BLPTALK: Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices should... The bolded part provides a deliberate exception for saying that individual people publish misinformation (or other, similar things questioning their credibility) in the context of article-content and sourcing discussions like this one. Otherwise BLPTALK would have a chilling effect on debate over a source, since questions about a source's reliability could be framed as an attack on the writer themselves. Obviously there are some limits (the discussion has to be sufficiently plausible that it's related to article decisions, not something that is clearly settled or WP:DEADHORSE) but in this case it's clear that Cass and the Cass Report are sufficiently controversial, and have sufficiently high-quality sources characterizing them as misinformation, that it's reasonable to at least discuss such things in the context of what sources to use when writing articles. Obviously you can say "no, wait, this person doesn't publish misinformation" but you can't prohibit people from simply arguing that they publish misinformation, not unless it's so clear-cut or settled that you can argue their comments have no hope of contributing constructively to sourcing decisions. --Aquillion (talk) 20:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@Simonm223: @Aquillion: Please direct me to the sources which support the allegation that Dr Cass provides misinformation, and the places in this discussion where this is a discussed in a manner relevant to the question asked. (I’ve just done Ctrl+F for misinformation, and I can’t find anything). Sweet6970 (talk) 21:49, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

See Cass Review#Criticisms - Cass repeatedly endorses the desistance myth, supports a form of treatment, gender exploratory therapy, which is a form of conversion therapy, pathologizes trans people such as by labelling trans kids "gender questioning" despite them not actually questioning their gender, proposes that social transition only be allowed with medical guidance (which is bullshit as social transition is a human right), and more. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:09, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

We do in fact have an article on anti-trans misinformation: Transgender health care misinformation

And the simple fact of that matter is human rights orgs and MEDORGs around the world agree that the best approach for trans people is gender-affirming care. There is no evidence, whatsoever, that the inverse (gender identity change efforts) work and evidence it is harmful.

I also think that the general effectiveness of HRT for gender transition is very well documented and denying that really would be WP:FRINGE - Hormones induce a cross-sex puberty, everybody knows this. They are physically effective for what they are prescribed for. We can say "a review found low evidence of benefit psychologically to helping kids transition", but we can't ignore that MEDORGs and human rights groups saying that "the right treatment is helping trans people's body reflect their identity."

That review says Beyond evidence certainty, decision making should consider other factors, including the magnitude and consequences of potential benefits and harms, patients ’ and caregivers’ values and preferences, resource use, feasibility, acceptability and equity.41 Guideline developers and policy makers must transparently state which and whose values they prioritise when developing treatment recommendations and policies. - The evidence base is weak, but Guyatt would be the first to call bullshit on the claim "this is not the right treatment because the evidence is weak". From the view of medical ethics, gender-affirming care is the best treatment, because the opposite, withholding it, has been shown to be harmful.

Is there any evidence that any other approach is effective? Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Just a quick reminder here that WP:RGW does not mean what people often think it means. Many people think that WP:RGW means other editors having an opinion that you disagree with, but that's very much not the case. WP:RGW is about a kind of tendentious WP:OR where you add your own opinion to an article without sourcing, and I've emphasized that because WP:RGW emphasizes it. It says clearly, italics theirs, that:

If, however, the wrong that you want to address has already been sorted in the real world, and if you have the reliable sources to support it, then please do update the articles. Loki (talk) 20:42, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

You miss the point, which is that by using FRINGE to exclude specific completely legitimate and well sourced POVs, editors can subvert giving appropriate weight to the balance of informed opinion, which is also RGW. Deciding what you are sure is the truth of a current or historical political, religious, or moral issue by excluding contrary viewpoints through misuse of FRINGE is RGW. Void if removed (talk) 21:07, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Are you asserting that transphobia is a mainstream view? Simonm223 (talk) 21:29, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

In the US, and elsewhere, for example support for allowing openly trans soldiers in the US military has been steadily declining, as reported by for example this February 10 Gallup Poll, which charts a decline from 71% in 2019 to 58% in 2025 at the time of Gallup's poll. This matter and topic are quite mainstream in the US. There are many polls like this that have charted a growing public (that is, mainstream) rejection: Here is another article from Pew charting the matter from a few years ago ([25]) and another from PBS ([26]). This has been a hot topic in the US (and elsewhere) that has only accelerated in the culture wars over the last year especially. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:34, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

If we're basing what we consider mainstream vs fringe views on popularity polls from the United States then we should wrap up the Wikipedia project as a failure. The idea that it's mainstream to be a transphobe should be seen as absurd as the idea that it's mainstream to be an anti-black racist or an anti-semite. Simonm223 (talk) 14:18, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

using FRINGE to exclude specific completely legitimate and well sourced POVs - what completely legitimate and well sourced POVs are being excluded by FRINGE? I'll take a stab in the dark and guess you mean the multiple statements made in the Cass Review reports completely unsupported by 1) the York Reviews or 2) MEDRS in general?

15 years ago, the view that being trans is not a mental illness would have been ALT. Now, the situation has shifted so drastically that it's the mainstream view, and claims that being trans is a mental illness are WP:FRINGE. If Wikipedia existed in 1970, the view that being gay is not a mental illness would have been ALT. By ~1980 it was mainstream, and claims that being gay is a mental illness became FRINGE.

FRINGE is being used as a hammer to WP:RGW from what I can see. - I'd say it's the opposite, those who are seeking to WP:RGW are the ones insisting that FRINGE views are not and trying to put statements with poor quality sourcing in wikivoice (ie, repeatedly trying to claim the data shows most pre-pubertal trans kids suddenly grow out of it come puberty).

It is not the job of editors to decide that one clinical approach in a hotly contested field with limited evidence is "right" and everyone else is "wrong" and go issue by issue cementing whatever editors believe to be the "correct" approach as the one true path, and everything else FRINGE. - The Russian Federation's Society of Psychiatrists has proposed that the clinical approach to trans people should be conversion therapy.[27] Is that a FRINGE clinical approach? If this is a hotly contested field with limited evidence, who's to say they're wrong? AFAICT, by your argument, a few countries endorsing conversion therapy (for LGB people as well for that matter) means we can't say support for conversion therapy is FRINGE Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:53, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

If you're advocating to exclude the viewpoint that "trans women aren't women" from articles because it is an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views, then you're effectively treating it as WP:FRINGE.

Wikipedia traits racism as fringe. Race (human categorization) directly says there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable, which rejects our definition of racism as the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race or ethnicity over another. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:25, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Well in very rare cases, there are people who are in fact not wholly male or female (and in some cases both). So it can be argued that a blanket denial of their existence is in fact fringe. Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Not necessarily… “fringe” is based on acceptance/non-acceptance, it is not based on accuracy. A mainstream view can be inaccurate. That said, I am just quibbling over terminology. I don’t think enough people deny the existence of trans people to call that denial “mainstream”. Blueboar (talk) 13:21, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

it is also based on what experts, not laymen say. And I am unsure that any expert denies the existence of people who in fact are both genders (for example). Slatersteven (talk) 13:25, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Prejudice isn't really fringe in-and-of-itself. It may be morally repugnant and yet still a socially/educationally significant belief held by a significant number of people and sources. Obviously we don't treat something like racist beliefs as gospel truth, but we don't disregard the fact that they exist. A fringe prejudice would be something like... a hatred of people who part their hair on the left or the right, or people who don't like spicy food. Some people out there may be wild enough to actually hold those beliefs, but they're not a significant societal factor. GMG ^talk 13:45, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

To claim that people don't actually have a gender identity, or that gender identity always matches sex and/or preferred gender expression, or that there is any working, developed therapy for changing one's gender identity to cisgender is, of course, [[WP:FRINGE]].--Reprarina (talk) 15:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Whether or not being anti-trans is fringe, being anti-trans is covered under WP:HATEISDISRUPTIVE. Simonm223 (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I quite frankly don't understand why this section was created. It appears to be an underhanded slight at the above discussions, because there is clear community consensus against the opinion that they are not fringe. I can't think of any other reason to start it — there is no stated mainspace or article talkspace dispute that prompted it, nor does there appear to be any actual useful question being asked. Other than, of course, "is it fringe to be against trans people"; but I don't really see the point in asking that, because per WP:FRINGE, it's defined as being against prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. Being transgender, in and of itself, is not some kind of mainstream medical view. It is just simply what a person is. Being against the science behind it (which the above discussions are clearly about) is however, so that could be the only reasonable meaning extracted from this malformed question — in which case the answer is that it is fringe to be against commonly accepted and the majority of medical literature on the subject.

This seems to exist only to make the question not about evidence or Wikipedia policy, but about a personal view or views about the topic, and the doubt expressed by Chess and others in the above discussion(s). While it should have stayed out of those discussions for being off-topic, it definitely shouldn't be here either, in a separate discussion that is about nothing and no-one in particular and doesn't seem to exist for the better of determining scientifically fringe viewpoints on topics. I'd advise as a personal gesture to strike this question, as it isn't conducive to the discussions above. Citing WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and the serious use of phrases like The Truth™ and The Community™ don't give me great hope that this discussion and certain replies to above discussions are in good faith, as I've already pointed out above. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 00:08, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Talk:Trans woman has had multiple RfCs about whether the lede should say "trans women are women". Likewise, Talk:Woman regularly has discussions on whether the definition of a woman provided is transphobic, including one a few months ago on whether there should be a discrepancy between the articles woman and trans woman. [28]

The question I'm asking is whether we can codify that trans women are women, and that editors shouldn't change articles to imply there's a dispute or that trans women are not women. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:44, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

That's still not something that can be fringe. If it were discussing the intricacies of the science behind being transgender, then maybe. But an RfC about whether or not a lede should include the statement "transgender women are women" isn't fringe, nor is deciding whether or not something is transphobic something that can be fringe. This frankly shouldn't be on this noticeboard at all. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 00:55, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

The overall question is whether or not trans women aren't women is fringe, not whether or not a specific lede should include that. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

My previous point stands. This forum is not for this discussion, nor is Wikipedia for the kind of opinions this and other discussions have seemed to bring out. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 03:02, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I agree with that, but I'm still interested in seeing what others have to say. You could call that stirring the pot, but I think there is value to seeking out opinions that are different than my own, rather than just dropping my views on a noticeboard+calling it a day.

What I've gleaned is that there's significant disagreement on what WP:FRINGE means and whether it should apply to definitions like "trans women are women" or potentially even value judgements. Hearing the rationales from editors such as YFNS and yourself are beneficial to get a grip on the controversy. e.g. You+Loki have argued there should be an identifiable "body of knowledge" that WP:FRINGE is out of place in. But YFNS doesn't argue for that requirement.

What I initially believed is that the underlying dispute for many of the above discussions is whether or not trans women are women. But there's a lot more disagreement on both sides than I imagined there'd be. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:00, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, this really is much more specific IMO. The Cass Review finding that the evidence base for youth gender medicine is poor is a damaging development to US legal and political battles over trans healthcare. As such, some commentators are (rightly or wrongly) invested in discrediting it while others are invested in defending it.

This recent review article highlights the misinformation about the subject, none of which is coming from the Cass Review. It also says:

The fact that scientists who are criticizing the low quality of current data, and are trying to improve it are accused of not being well-meaning, illustrates well the confusion between evidence-based practice and rights-based practice in that specific field of gender dyphoria in minors. It is unprecedented in the history of medicine that referring to systematic evidence to justify whether a drug treatment protocol is relevant “should be interpreted as “phobic” or as “hatred” or “discrimination”.

What has been made abundantly clear, across talk discussions stretching back the last year, and these recent RFCs, is that some editors believe that the "affirmative model" is the one true model of care for trans youth, and anything else is has to be excluded as FRINGE, and any evidence to suggest otherwise is untrustworthy - which is very specifically centred on the Cass Review now, claiming it to be (astonishingly, IMO) actual misinformation.

And so we see repeated attempts to use FRINGE subject by subject to exclude RS that say the wrong things or are said by the wrong people, or even being said by the wrong country.

Rather than just accepting the picture is muddy, and neutrally presenting all significant points of view, which is what editors are supposed to do. I think FRINGE offers a loophole to NPOV in contentious topics. Void if removed (talk) 11:27, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

That's a narrative review, not systematic one, with no identified methodology, that claims that ROGD definitely exists, that social transition is an active intervention , promotes the desistance myth, argues against a "rights-based approach". It seems to be a paper in their inaugural issue. One of the authors seems to have no experience in trans healthcare whatsoever, but wrote an article with conversion therapist Kenneth Zucker, president of conversion therapy org Genspect Stella O'Malley, and SEGMs founder. [29] There's no evidence this is reliable, and plenty it isn't.

some editors believe that the "affirmative model" is the one true model of care for trans youth, and anything else is has to be excluded as FRINGE, - so what's the alternative? You can't keep insisting the treatment the majority of the worlds MEDORGs agree is right is in fact wrong without identifying what the alternative treatment is supposed to be. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:56, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

We may be in disagreement about whether or not it is fringe to be discriminatory towards a group of people, or even hateful. I don't personally believe that such a thing is possible; although it does often come with the belief that the science and medical bodies behind such things are untrue, which is fringe. I'm open to discussion on such a point — after all, that's more what this noticeboard is about — were that the actual issue here. The issue is this discussion section, which as it goes on longer and longer it makes me not assume good faith about the intent behind it. I would still implore you to strike your comments in this section and move on. I don't see any value here from "seeking out opinions" on something off-topic to the above discussions, much less this entire noticeboard, especially not when it appears to be nothing more than pot-stirring, as you have aptly described yourself.

In reply to Void (as I do not feel like leaving a separate reply), I feel we've already come to some kind of agreement the Cass review is not reliable from the above discussions, so I have no comment on using it once again to support these arguments and perpetuating the sort of "just asking questions" mentality here. As for the review, it seems to be from a very new academic publisher. This isn't particularly an issue in and of itself, but combined with the fact that the journal it is published in has only come out this year, is worrying. That alongside the fact some of the editorial board is of dubious quality at first glance, and that I am unable to find much of anything about the authors of the review itself, I'd like to see some more corroborating stuff in terms of reviews or analyses of the Cass review before I can take your word on it. Also anything substantiating the journal or its publication would be nice, too.

I will ignore the rest of the comment for personal opinions on the subject matter, being off-topic and not suited for here. Though I will say that invoking NPOV again is bold despite the fact it's a complete misuse of it, once more. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 12:41, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

We may be in disagreement about whether or not it is fringe to be discriminatory towards a group of people, or even hateful. I haven't made up my mind on this. I would say the tenet of racism that "some groups are superior than others" is clearly WP:FRINGE. But others have given me more perspective on why that might be (specifically, that it's WP:FRINGE in the sense that some groups are biologically superior to others, not as a value judgement).

I agree with Void if removed's perspective more, though. I'm not seeing a difference in practice between any scientific or medical view that denies a transgender person's chosen identity is WP:FRINGE and denying a transgender person's chosen identity is WP:FRINGE, given that articles are expected to prioritize scientific/medical consensus. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:30, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

You+Loki have argued there should be an identifiable "body of knowledge" that WP:FRINGE is out of place in. But YFNS doesn't argue for that requirement. I have identified human rights scholarship, feminist scholarship, and criminological/sociological scholarship, and biomedical scholarship as body's of knowledge for different questions. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:58, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

I see this as several different questions. How we should describe trans people should be a matter for the MOS, for example, MOS:GENDERID. Being anti-trans is not a theory, anti-trans people or groups might believe or promote theories which may run the gamut from WP:FRINGE/PS to WP:FRINGE/QS or WP:FRINGE/ALT, or they might even occasionally be discussed alongside perfectly normal mainstream theories, both related and unrelated to their anti-transness. If they have a record of pushing fringe theories, then that is something that might be discussed, but otherwise I don't really see much that's relevant here. Finally denying that someone can be transgender, is something that, on a literal reading of the words on my screen here, I'm fairly sure even most anti-trans people do not do. Trans people evidently exist, otherwise there wouldn't be anything to be anti- over. I'm not sure if I'm reading your comment too literally but I can't see how this is even a question. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:48, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

To build on your overarching question Is being anti-trans WP:FRINGE? (to which I'd say being anti-<insert minority demographic> is generally fringe among human rights scholarship and scholarship in general), as well as the additional questions you'd asked, I'd like to present the following ideas for more specific questions the board can more easily answer.

Is the view that transgender rights are a danger to cisgender people fringe? This is an empirical claim. There's quite a lot of scholarship noting that despite claims to the contrary, the answer is no. And there's no data showing that view is correct.
Is gender-critical feminism fringe among feminism? Also quite easy to answer, apart from all the scholarship basically every feminist and human rights organization worldwide calls BS on the GC movement. TBF, the lead of gender-critical feminism already leaves this pretty clear-cut.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 03:01, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

No, NOT fringe. The question is misconceived. There is no ‘correct’ view. This is a political question. For instance, the dispute about whether trans women are women is a dispute about the use of the word ‘woman’. And if you are saying that ‘sex’ is mutable, then you are not speaking about biological sex, which is fixed at fertilisation, but about gender – once again, this is a dispute about the usage of the word ‘sex’. Regarding: "However, gender-critical feminism does not directly explain in article voice that trans women are women" - The article about g-c feminism should state g-c feminists’ view on this, not the view of Wikipedia editors. And ‘Hate is disruptive’ is only an essay, not a policy, and it has zero relevance for the question which has been asked. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

There is no ‘correct’ view. This is a political question. - saying segregation is necessary is a political view. Is it FRINGE? Whether a question is political has no bearing on whether some people's answers are fringe.

The original question was Is denying that someone can be transgender a WP:FRINGE belief? - the answer is absolutely yes. Nobody serious disputes the existence of trans people.

The article about g-c feminism should state g-c feminists’ view on this, - as well as the mainstream views. Just like how Gender-critical feminism#conversion therapy should mention that not a single MEDORG in the world buys that nonsense. The article already notes that GC feminism is unpopular among feminists generally, and independent RS generally describe it as a hate movement. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:00, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

Absolutely not appropriate for this forum. It's important that all editors here leave their politics and personal beliefs at the door: we are here to report on what reliable sources say and nothing more. I'm seeing more and more on this topic on Wikipedia that look more like advocacy of this or that position instead of simply reporting on material, which is completely inappropriate for Wikipedia. And as a reminder, Wikipedia:Hate is disruptive is not policy, it's just some editor's essay: you can believe whatever you want and edit Wikipedia, whether any editor (including myself) agrees with you or not. Wikipedia isn't an arm of any political party and stop trying to make it into one. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:13, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

In the colloquial sense of "fringe" as meaning a belief held only by a small percentage of the population, denying that trans people exist is not a fringe belief. However, in the sense of our WP:FRINGE guideline, which covers beliefs that require active science denial to maintain, then yes, it is. The case of creationism is a useful comparison here. Gallup finds that not quite 40% of Americans espouse a young-earth creationist belief [30]. Other surveys with different methodologies have come back with different numbers, but I don't know of any survey that has found a proportion so small that it would clearly be "fringe" in the colloquial sense. But creationism is explicitly within the remit of WP:FRINGE. XOR'easter (talk) 02:50, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Inappropriate for this forum as per SmittenGalaxy and per WP:HERE and WP:BATTLE. The question doesn't have a basis in any content dispute, or in the legitimacy of any particular sources. I am concerned that instead it seems to be set up to "prove" that there is some sort of onwiki persecution of people with certain political/social views. Contra Chess above, Wikipedia does not treat racism in general as WP:FRINGE because in itself, it is not in the category of things which are considered fringe or otherwise. On the other hand, Wiki treats racist pseudoscience - false empirical claims motivated by racism - as fringe. Can we stick to what matters to the encyclopedia? OsFish (talk) 05:47, 20 February 2025 (UTC)
+1 to what OsFish has said (and SmittenGalaxy above). Chess: this is just phenomenally immature pot-stirring. I ask for an uninvolved editor to close. Generalrelative (talk) 06:05, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Manoppello Image

Manoppello Image (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Like the Shroud of Turin, this is a medieval artwork that living Catholics are still trying to sell as an authentic relic. Probably belongs on more watchlists and needs to be combed for false balance. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:13, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Dear me that is such an obvious fake! OsFish (talk) 09:12, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

The "more recent study" (which are actually three studies) looks like apologetic pseudoscience. What do you guys think?

If someone takes their take time to improve that article to a point that folks here think is adequate, let me know so I put it on my list to translate to pt. VdSV9•♫ 13:46, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Ganzfeld

Telepathy is real, according to parapsychology sources. And possibly the longest citation line in Wikipedia history. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:38, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Wow! Almost as long as a CVS receipt. Sgerbic (talk) 20:41, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Edit warring is continuing along with talkpage posts. It's pretty obvious that the guy is unable to drop the issue (he had the temerity to unhat the discussion he opened on my talkpage) and I think an escalation to ANI or AE is probably necessary. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:39, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

An explanation of how our policies regarding WP:FRINGE and WP:MAINSTREAM apply must be offered by multiple experienced editors on the article Talk page for the benefit of an editor with a relatively low edit count and an advocacy axe to grind. Of course this is a time sink for editors, but is unfortunately the only way an ANI or AE complaint will be acted on in good faith. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:15, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I also think an explanation of WP:IDHT, WP:1AM and Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass are also necessary. Parapsychology is well outside my area of expertise though, so I'll leave that to other noticeboard regulars. I've already spoken my peace to them on the matter. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

It may be evolving to a more general WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS disruption. - LuckyLouie (talk)

User is back at it again after break following being blocked [31]. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks to Tamzin, "Aganon77 is topic-banned from paranormal phenomena, broadly construed, and page-blocked from Ganzfeld experiment and its talkpage." Doug Weller talk 13:59, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Biology and political orientation

Over on Biology and political orientation, a user has inserted a bunch of primary source studies [32] including the work of fringe psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa. And another study on circulating hormone levels and political orientation [33]. These are pilot studies and pretty controversial.

The user is well aware of the issues with primary sources since I've had a discussion with them about this problem on another talk page. The article itself looks to be written with a lot of primary sources.

I'd rather not touch this one myself since I've already had disagreements with them elsewhere.

Zenomonoz (talk) 06:00, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

I've redone the offending paragraph with reference to a meta-analysis. OsFish (talk) 06:53, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

sourcing on that article seems to violate wp:MEDRS, lots of sweeping claims based mostly on pilot studies and such. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 14:07, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

The user is reinserting the content, and now citing the work of far-right 'commentator' Edward Dutton. Zenomonoz (talk) 20:49, 11 February 2025 (UTC)

can you ping the user? User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 02:08, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

@Skellyret can you address concerns before undoing reverts?

for wikipedia, many editors follow the WP:BRD cycle. it is WP:ONUS of person inserting info to prove that info is warranted, if multiple folks bring up questions. Otherwise, the material generally will be removed User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 02:10, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I’ve reverted their latest edit and asked them to discuss on the talkpage or here. OsFish (talk) 05:05, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't know what the problem is, to be honest. It's well known within the scientific community that liberals tend to have a higher IQ than conservatives, I simply brought up Kanazawa as his hypothesis is the only hypothesis that attempts to explain the observed phenomenon. I specifically wrote that it's also highly criticized. Why should people not be allowed to read controversial information? Furthermore just what about the sources I cited on intellect are not reliable?

I could accept removing the portion about the correlation between testosterone and conservatism since its only one study of its kind, and I guess the hypothesis as well, but otherwise everything should be just fine. Skellyret (talk) 08:02, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Also just to be clear nothing about the link between IQ and political attitude is fringe. Here's another source establishing the link:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201003/why-liberals-are-more-intelligent-conservatives Skellyret (talk) 08:05, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps it isn't fringe, perhaps it is. I'm not familiar enough with the literature to say one way or another. But you'll have to do much better than Psychology Today. That's not a reliable source. Generalrelative (talk) 08:09, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Arguably it is since it follows all the protocols and has been cited before but alright I guess. I mean I also cited the Psypost article as a secondary source:

https://www.psypost.org/genetic-variations-help-explain-the-link-between-cognitive-ability-and-liberalism/

Here's the original study its based on: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39130356/

The university of Minnesota acknowledging the Psypost article:

https://cla.umn.edu/psychology/news-events/story/tobias-edwards-and-colleagues-link-between-intelligence-and-political-beliefs

Here's Reason magazine (recognized as a reliable source) also asserting that liberals have a slightly higher IQ than conservatives: https://reason.com/2014/06/13/are-conservatives-dumber-than-liberals/ Skellyret (talk) 08:31, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

None of these are peer-reviewed sources. If the position is mainstream, you should have no trouble identifying a reliable peer-reviewed secondary source. Generalrelative (talk) 08:47, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Furthermore, PsyPost respects the consensus of experts in scientific fields and prioritizes the publication of peer-reviewed research. These factors collectively contribute to PsyPost’s reputation as a trustworthy platform for scientific news and analysis. Skellyret (talk) 08:49, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. PsyPost is not a peer-reviewed journal. It's clearly pop-science news, where writers may not have the requisite expertise to evaluate the claims they're reporting on. In this case, the author's bio reads:

Eric is the founder, publisher, and editor of PsyPost. He has more than 10 years of experience working in journalism and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Bradley University.

So not only is it pop-science by a non-expert, it's also WP:SPS. Generalrelative (talk) 09:02, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Aight here is a source from Sage Journal: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0190272510361602?icid=int.sj-abstract.citing-articles.6 Skellyret (talk) 09:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

And now we're back where we started. Do you see who the author is? Satoshi Kanazawa cannot be a secondary source on Satoshi Kanazawa. That's leaving aside the fact that he is not a particularly trusted figure within the scientific community, as evinced by his BLP. Generalrelative (talk) 09:25, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Whoops you're right, my bad. Alright well I can't find any specifically peer-reviewed secondary sources which discusses the established link between liberalism and a higher IQ. Reason is seen as a reliable source as per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources but you won't accept it.

There's a ton of primary sources but you'll probably cry about it so I'll just leave it here. Skellyret (talk) 09:32, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

FYI, if you keep saying childish things like "you'll probably cry about it" you don't get to be part of this project. Generalrelative (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

The Reason article seems to question rather than endorse the study. Springee (talk) 11:42, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

generally always have questions about these IQ factoid studies i.e.

saying blondes have lower iqs than brunettes
saying left handed folks have higher iqs than ambidextrous folks
saying short people have higher iqs than taller folks

replace iq with any arbitrary cognitive measure actually, and these groups with anything that really isn’t correlated with cognition. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 16:29, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this here, Zenomonoz. I've added the page to my watchlist. Generalrelative (talk) 05:17, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Material based on primary sources can be valuable and appropriate additions to Wikipedia articles, but only in the form of straightforward descriptive statements that any educated person—with access to the source but without specialist knowledge—will be able to verify are directly supported by the source. Skellyret (talk) 07:52, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Per WP:NOR: Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source. That's the problem with basing whole sections on primary sources alone: we cannot say anything substantive about the topic without violating the policy against original research. Generalrelative (talk) 08:08, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Ok so what did I say that was orginal or synthetical? Skellyret (talk) 08:17, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I've just learned that this article exists. I'm not sure what you added and what was added by others. I'm making a comment about what belongs in article space. Much of the article, by our standards, is simply unencyclopedic. It's rather full of trivia about unreplicated studies. Generalrelative (talk) 08:50, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Lol fair enough. Skellyret (talk) 08:55, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Has anyone looked at the PubPeer notices? Doug Weller talk 14:04, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Theory of multiple intelligences

A number of brand new editors have been showing up on Talk:Theory of multiple intelligences, and they have a lot to say about the lead, which currently states 'The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) is a pseudoscientific theory' - one recent talk page post doubled the length of the whole talk page single-handedly.

More folks to read and respond would be very helpful, thanks. - MrOllie (talk) 15:47, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Well that's the first time I've ever seen someone put a whole essay into a single comment on a talk page. Simonm223 (talk) 16:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Reference 3 is to a Frontiers in Psychology article, which seems like a bad choice for a controversial topic. Anything to do with intelligence research should be built on a more solid foundation than that. XOR'easter (talk) 17:58, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

There's a WP:RS/N thread right now about the Frontiers Media journals and I would concur that they seem somewhat unreliable. Simonm223 (talk) 18:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Frontiers in Psychology is on the list of journals linked in that discussion that have been downgraded to JUFO level 0. If we're calling anything pseudoscientific, we should do so with sources that are above suspicion. XOR'easter (talk) 18:08, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say that's nearly as inappropriate as using The Bell Curve - which, great catch getting rid of that source btw. Simonm223 (talk) 18:12, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Wow, what a mess. Reference 25 is to a whole book, an edited collection representing 50 authors, formatted instead as a reference to a website. Reference 69 is to a paper by an "A. R. Jensen" in Intelligence, which is really making me wonder about the history of the Theory of multiple intelligences article. XOR'easter (talk) 19:00, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

Reference 5 mixes together elements of the bibliographical details of a book by Gardner with bibliographical details of a review of the same book. Reference 4 is also to a complete book with no page numbers, and very few bibliographical details provided. Simonm223 (talk) 19:18, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

Did a cursory search about this subject, and one of the first non-Frontiers peer-reviewed papers which popped up was this article, which is supportive. Same as this publication in "Roeper Review" (Taylor & Francis journal). Are those good enough to use as a reference, or does the fact they share an author, who is one of the promoters of this technique, as seen here, also disqualify them?

On the other hand; I know that Psychology Today is not WP:RS, but what about citing the actual book mentioned here? The one issue I can see with that is the fact said book's author also serves on the board of Intelligence.

Lastly, it gets a chapter in The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence, but it's hard to tell from the preview whether it's supportive or dismissive of it. (And looking up chapter author does not seem to bring up immediately obvious red flags.) InformationToKnowledge (talk) 18:16, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

The current reference 2 (Waterhouse 2006) doesn't really support "pseudoscientific". It says that multiple intelligences isn't supported by empirical evidence, but it never uses words like "pseudoscientific" or "pseudoscience".

Current reference 3 (New York Review of Books) is hard to access; the site appears to be broken. I'd like an archive link.

Current reference 1 (Geake 2008) calls multiple intelligences a "neuromyth" and says it's not supported by scientific evidence but also never actually uses the word "pseudoscience".

Overall, based on these cites I'd support rephrasing to "false theory" or "scientifically unsupported theory" rather than "pseudoscientific theory". (But some of InformationToKnowledge's cites, posted while I was writing this, make me suspect that it actually should be "scientifically controversial theory" or "heterodox theory".) Loki (talk) 18:23, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

What's odd is the uniformly incomplete citations. There's both material clearly from Gardner's POV and material that's clearly from a skeptical POV and in both cases the citations are a mess. Simonm223 (talk) 18:25, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

FYI I've brought up a concern about the lead rewrite here. Leijurv (talk) 19:32, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

FYI I have made some moderate edits to the lead here, but it still doesn't go so far as to call MI "false", which I suspect might be warranted. I wrote a (long) summary of some of the above sources here. Leijurv (talk) 05:06, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Noble Drew Ali

Besides the major change in the lead from "teachings" to "methods" and the nonsense about a book being registered at the Library of Congress, are there any other problems with the recent changes, which oaf course may continue?{https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Noble_Drew_Ali&diff=1278603443&oldid=1275641421] Doug Weller talk 13:18, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Service: Noble Drew Ali (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch, American religious leader of 100 years ago. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:16, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Ivory-billed woodpecker

There is a discussion about how Fringe and FRINGELEVEL applies to the article here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ivory-billed_woodpecker#%22Evidence_of_persistence_in_the_United_States_since_1944%22_subsection Geogene (talk) 03:20, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Service: Ivory-billed woodpecker (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch, extinct bird still sighted more often than Elvis. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:17, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Franz Ignaz Pruner

Franz Ignaz Pruner (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Have concerns with how certain pseudoscientific claims on race are presented, unchallenged or without context, in this section of the article. The article seems to have had relatively low traffic since it was translated from German Wikipedia in 2007. Can someone with familiarity in this topic area take a look? Best, Bridget (talk) 02:45, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Redirected to Scientific racism#Franz Ignaz Pruner Doug Weller talk 13:55, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

@Doug Weller If he’s not notable then it’s certainly not due weight to have an entire section on that article and it should be removed. Why not just nominate it for deletion? PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:25, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

I removed it. A top level article like that is not the place for non-notable race scientists especially if based on a brief mention in 1 book. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:33, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

And as you didn't restore his article, that effectively deleted it without an AfD. I've rstored it. You can AfD it if you want but there are now sources on the talk page.

Giménez-Roldán, S. (2016). Paul Broca’s search for Basque skulls: The full story. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 25(4), 371–385. https://doi.org/10.1080/0964704X.2014.886811

GOODRUM, MATTHEW R. “The Beginnings of Human Palaeontology: Prehistory, Craniometry and the ‘Fossil Human Races.’” The British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 49, no. 3, 2016, pp. 387–409. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26350810. Accessed 4 Mar. 2025. Doug Weller talk 13:02, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Gustav Jahoda, Images of Savages: Ancients [sic] Roots of Modern Prejudice in Western Culture, 1999, p. 82 Doug Weller talk 13:18, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Christine Horner

There are a few things on here that ring alarm bells, but I lack the knowledge to evaluate it myself. Could someone have a look? Boynamedsue (talk) 07:34, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Service: Christine Horner (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch. She tries to heal cancer with alternative medicine. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:12, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Huge red flag that she's doing interviews with Joseph Mercola. The thing is, I don't see evidence that she's notable in her field. The sources for her claim that she played a key role in getting reconstructive breast surgery covered in insurance all go back to claims made by herself, particularly, the 1998 very short (one and a bit pages) article she had published in the American Journal of Surgery. Which is ambiguously phrased about how big her role actually was. The rest is basically links to what seem to me non MedRS sources promoting alternative approaches to cancer prevention/treatment. Which isn't good. And quite a few of those mention her only in passing. OsFish (talk) 05:08, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Anyway, I've created an AfD you can find here.OsFish (talk) 04:30, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Cultural neuroscience

This article raised some red flags for me, given that it's well undersourced and discussing contentious topics like the relation between race and neuroscience. I know nothing about neuroscience, so I figured I would post it here so someone who does can take a look. Kylemahar902 (talk) 01:52, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

@Culturalneuro made most of this article years ago apparently.

from my look at it, in general its more promotional of the topic than it should be and generally cites way too much primary scholarship, to the point of being synth. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 02:01, 19 February 2025 (UTC)

I would go so far as to say that this is a likely merge candidate to social neuroscience. There are a great variety of academic "fields" that seem to consist of, more or less, a couple papers that declare they are fields. jp×g 🗯️ 06:28, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, I have proposed it. jp×g 🗯️ 06:30, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Anatoly Karlin

Anatoly Karlin who spent over a decade writing for the The Unz Review is removing content from the The Unz Review Wikipedia article. The content he is removing is this content:

"The Unz Review hosts the blogs of far-right writers Steve Sailer and Anatoly Karlin. The Review of General Psychology describes Sailer as "a political writer who uses the language of IQ and genetics to further a White nationalist political agenda" and Karlin as a promoter of "antisemitic conspiracy theories and associates with alt-right political activist Richard Spencer".

This is well sourced to a peer-reviewed paper [34] Veg Historian (talk) 22:58, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Seems more like something for WP:COIN tbh. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:05, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Related to this, this is a continued attack against me from the Human Diversity Foundation. I have raised a complaint about Karlin at WP:ANI [35]. Veg Historian (talk) 23:50, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I would recommend anyone who is scrolling through here and bored check out the articles in question: Steve Sailer and The Unz Review. They both seem strangely nonchalant about subjects that, in reality, are quite loathsomely bigoted. No comment on Karlin, because I don't really know who that is, but I would keep an eye on these pages and see if there is anything sus going on. jp×g 🗯️ 06:35, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Integrated information theory

Integrated information theory (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Uptick of activity here. Could use more eyes. Bon courage (talk) 18:30, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Draft:Jose Escamilla

I just reviewed and declined a biography of this filmmaker. The draft reads like it was written by a club of his admirers, but I would like to know whether other editors think that he was advancing a fringe theory that his photographs of rods were actually of flying insects and not of UFOs. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:22, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you Mr. McClenon for your input. I appreciate all who have guided me through all my articles. So you know, there is no club here, just me. I am not a paid editor nor have any monetary gain for submitting articles. I will continue to scrub the language of my article so that they will comply with Wiki's guide lines. I ask only for time to fix them.

I am confused on the way you wrote the fringe theory statement above. The Wikipedia link to the Rod (optical phenomenon) basically states it's a camera optical flaw or illusion, that the camera was actually filming insects. Please advice. Thank you. Luis John Soria (talk) 14:22, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Escamilla gained marginal notability for his promotion of claims that he had captured images of something paranormal on video (which were debunked by others as blurry images of ordinary insects). The draft article seems to be an awkward translation from another language, padded with promotional drek about his other enterprises including a non-notable guitar band. - LuckyLouie (talk) 14:35, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Do RSes need to conform to dictionaries in order for us to use them to call a climate change denialist?

At Talk:Jordan Peterson an editor is arguing that, because he is a BLP, we should discount reliable sources that call Peterson a climate change denialist on the basis that the sources in question don't align with selected dictionary definitions of climate change denialism. Is this a valid justification to exclude a sourced claim of climate change denialism? Simonm223 (talk) 15:22, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

This isn't a FTN question. What Peterson is saying about climate change and that many RSs strongly disagree and see his comments as undermining climate change efforts isn't in question. Applying a LABEL to Peterson that sources aren't using is a BLP question and should be addressed there. Springee (talk) 15:28, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. As the WP:CRYBLP argument being used here is being used to provide cover for a well-known climate change denier. Simonm223 (talk) 15:34, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

LABEL is a BLP issue not a FTN issue. You are making an appeal to emotion rather than reason here. Springee (talk) 15:38, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

You're flat wrong about the sources not labeling him. As to your characterization of me as "being too emotional" all I can say is lmao. Simonm223 (talk) 15:39, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The problem is most of the sources cited to apply the LABEL don't use the label. That is a problem. It's also a problem when the dictionary scope of "climate change denier" and our versions don't align. That means we may mislead readers. That becomes a WP:V question which I guess would be NPOV or again, BLPN since it applies to a person. Springee (talk) 15:45, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

This is tedious. The principal source in contention, does rather explicitly label him a climate change denier - it uses him as an example of a specific form of climate change denial as I showed you. With extensive quotations that I'd preferred not to have to do until it became clear you either were unwilling or unable to effectively read the source. Simonm223 (talk) 15:47, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Furthermore the text it supports is a lede summary of a portion of the body that is sourced to seventeen different sources Simonm223 (talk) 15:48, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, offering up source that fail WP:V is tedious. Which "principal" source in contention? This needs to go to BLPN given that this isn't a FTN question but does apply to a BLP. That or RSN since it questions if these sources are reliable for a specific claim. Springee (talk) 15:49, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Except, again, you are not being accurate. The new source I introduced today, and several others of the earlier sources do label Peterson and you didn't pivot to WP:CRYBLP until I shot down your dictionary argument. For a reminder, here are four of the times (not all of the times) you argued that we should be rating the articles against a dictionary. [36][37][38][39] Simonm223 (talk) 15:57, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The two sources you added today explicitly do not label Peterson a denier. They present facts that would not conflict with the label but they don't support it. Again, it's a pejorative LABEL so it's use need to be limited and careful. Springee (talk) 16:33, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

This is just plain wrong. One of the two sources lists climate change on a list of topics that brought Peterson to prominence. The other one spends two whole paragraphs thoroughly labeling Peterson as a climate change denier. Simonm223 (talk) 16:35, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

These diffs provide the extended quotation. [40] Simonm223 (talk) 16:36, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Your argument from that discussion was that because some dictionary definition of climate change denial (allegedly) doesn't fit how sources (including academic ones) use the term, those sources should be discarded. That is being discussed here. Nobody but you brought LABEL into this. Cortador (talk) 15:42, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Please do not falsely summarize my position. I am not claiming sources should be excluded. Instead I'm saying that a source that doesn't apply a LABEL to a BLP failed WP:V specifically for supporting the use of that LABEL. Labeling a person a climate change denier is subject to LABEL. Springee (talk) 15:47, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

We generally don't try to fact check secondary sources using a dictionary definition. That seems like a strange argument. I can understand if the subject of the article is related to linguistics or a term-in-itself. Otherwise it just comes off as a novel variety of SYNTH. GMG ^talk 16:10, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
The problem, which was originally raised by a different editor, is that Wiki editors are saying, in effect, Peterson engages in activities that, per our Climate change denial article count as climate change denial. However, we also have sources that offer a more detailed version of Peterson's statements. Peterson explicitly states that he agrees with anthropogenic climate change. So if someone agrees with anthropogenic climate change are they a climate change denier? Well we have a few source that explicitly say yes. We have a lot of sources that are critical of Peterson and climate change but don't use the label at all. We also have dictionaries such as Cambridge that state climate change denial is denying anthropogenic climate change. Since Peterson doesn't do that we have a problem. If we provide a more detailed discussion of both Peterson's position and reactions to that position we aren't misleading the readers. However, a reader that see "Peterson is a climate change denier" can very reasonably come away thinking Peterson denies anthropogenic climate change. So not only do we apply a pejorative LABEL in a way that most sources do not, we also potentially mislead readers who may be familiar with the plain text definition of climate change denial into thinking Peterson denies anthropogenic climate change. This question shouldn't have been raised here since this isn't a fridge question (denying anthropogenic climate change is clearly fringe). Instead it's a BLP question since we are applying a label that per the dictionary means something that isn't true about Peterson. Note that it also wouldn't be SYNTH to remove the LABEL from the article since the label only applies to what makes it in. Springee (talk) 16:43, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
How about we let some other people review the diffs above and give their feedback. So far this is just the two of us continuing an argument that it was clear I wanted wider feedback on. Simonm223 (talk) 16:45, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

That there’s nuance around what specific flavour of climate change denier he is doesn’t mean he’s not a climate change denier. I can’t even tell what the point of this argument is; there’s no planet on which the underlying claim will fall apart regardless of what sources are required, because we’re talking about a high profile climate change denier. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 16:50, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Actually that is exactly what the Cambridge dictionary says there is. Both MW [41] and CD [42] explicitly state that climate change denial is denying anthropogenic climate change. That other sources use other definitions is fine but it means we need to be explicit in what we claim else we are creating a false claim about a BLP subject. Springee (talk) 16:54, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Appeal to definition is a fallacy, and either way: source

Canadian psychologist and darling of conservatives and the alt-right, Jordan Peterson, has been on an all-out attack on the science of climate change and the risks of global heating.
Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:07, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
No, appealing to the common understanding of a term isn't a fallacy if our objective is to accurately convey information. If readers come away thinking "Peterson denies anthropogenic climate change" then we have mislead them. A more refined statement about his position would address the issue but some editors feel it's more important to use a LABEL. Regardless, this isn't a FTN question and shouldn't have been raised here. Springee (talk) 17:14, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Note that your source calls Lindzen a denier but doesn't call Peterson a denier (enabling a denialist message would be more accurate to that article). Springee (talk) 17:16, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
are you kidding Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:19, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The Independent

On the show, Mr Peterson made basic errors speaking about global heating and declared “there’s no such thing as climate."
Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 17:24, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
That was a very misleading quote by the Independent. It's the sort of misleading quote that should have us questioning the source. In the original, discussion Peterson is making a claim about the scope of what is included when people talk about these things. He is clearly making a rhetorical argument. This was discussed a while back on the Peterson talk page. Springee (talk) 18:28, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
And the Guardian quote? Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 19:20, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The Cambridge Dictionary states that climate change denial is "the argument or belief that climate change is not happening, or is not caused by human activity such as burning fossil fuels". Emphasis mine. Did you even read the sources you are citing here? Cortador (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
The dictionary has no bearing. GMG ^talk 22:04, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Using a dictionary definition to counter balance secondary sources certainly falls under the spirit of OR. If someone puts "koala bear" in an article, we don't remove it citing a dictdef for bears; we use a source about koalas.

Moreover, we see this kind of hedging on pretty much every fringy controversy. People aren't anti vax; they just don't think the science is settled. People aren't Islamaphobes; they want to defend Judeo-Christian heritage. People aren't homophobic; they want to preserve traditional family values. These people can be both ignorant and wrong and yet not stupid enough to openly say what they mean because they know Kanye exists. But the Kanye can still creep in sometimes like when Peterson called climate science "an appalling scam".

You are putting so much effort into trying to make this guy not believe something he clearly does and not say things he clearly did. If you find yourself arguing against a dozen different people, you may want to carefully examine your hands and see if there is a stick that needs to be dropped. GMG ^talk 13:44, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
GMG, you have consistently shown a very level head on contentious topics thus I put more stock in your views vs most. My problem here is multi-part. First, I do think it's a general failing of Wikipedia when we put more effort into covering how "wrong" someone is vs actually trying to cover what they think. Compare this to something like the article on Hitler (and there's what's his name's law). We all know Hitler was a horrible person but the article does a better job sticking to facts rather than reporting the characterizations made by his critics (and lets be clear, any rational person is going to critical of the source of so much evil). However, when it comes to current, culture war subjects we put more effort into saying what others say about them but not actually covering what the subject originally said. We do a lot more telling and less showing. Beyond that, we have a core of the ARBCOM case that setup BLP which was do no harm [43]. When the subject has a complex view of a subject, even if wrong, we both do a disservice to our readers and harm the BLP if we over state the scope of the wrong things they claim. This is why I'm concerned about the dictionary part. If the average reader sees "climate change denier" and reasonably assumes "the guy thinks humans don't impact the climate" then we have conveyed something about the subject that is wrong. This is also why I note that to date the majority of the sources don't actually apply the LABEL to Peterson (admittedly many that don't probably would if asked). Thus we should follow the majority of sources and not use the term. I get that I'm one vs many in this case. In the previous talk page discussions there were more editors who had similar concerns. I'm clearly in the minority and per CON (no edit warring here). Springee (talk) 14:43, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
It's hard to argue the do-no-harm angle when these are things he says himself openly. It's not even a "gotcha" hot mic situation. They're things he's putting active effort into inserting in the public discourse. We don't adopt your angle on other fringy controversial subjects or figures. Hitler is a poor comparison because WP is just always better in every way at dispassionately covering old subjects rather than new ones. But you've been around the block and you surely know it's a dime-a-dozen for someone to show up and argue that [person] isn't...say...a Holocaust denier. They just have questions about the specifics, the reasoning, the numbers. GMG ^talk 15:16, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

I don't know if the sources involved (having not looked at them) are strong enough to apply that label to a BLP, but I can say that using an argument of "this is how dictionaries define it" is objectively a terrible argument and any editor using that should be ashamed of themselves. That's not how sources are used or applied. You can't use unrelated sources (which don't even mention the subject) to claim that the reliable sources are using a wrong definition. That's just pure WP:OR. Silver seren^C 16:47, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Absolutely not. If we write our articles in a way that misleads readers that is a problem. We don't have a wide range of sources that call Peterson a climate change denier. Instead we have editors have have decided that the activities Peterson has engaged in are "denial" thus we apply the label. Also, note that the article doesn't say he has engaged in climate change denial or has been accused of denial. Instead we say he explicitly is. If we are going to explicitly say he is then we need to have sources that say he is AND we need to make sure a reader wouldn't get a false impression of Peterson's views. Again, this is a BLP question, not a FTN discussion. Springee (talk) 16:59, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Again, I don't know whether the reliable sources being presented are strong enough in their wording to use such a label, but no one should be using an argument of "this unrelated dictionary defines climate change this way". That is a terrible argument. Something you'd expect a newbie editor who doesn't know anything about WP:RS guidelines to try and argue. Silver seren^C 17:18, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Several editors made that argument and none are newbies. If we are directly quoting sources or using the same terms as sources (ie we have a lot of sources that say "Peterson is a climate change denier" then I agree, we use the sources implied definition. However, when the sources don't use the label and the label's definition is not solid then we need to be careful about applying the label ourselves. Springee (talk) 18:26, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
No, you are the sole editor making that argument, and even if there were others, they would simply be equally wrong. Cortador (talk) 21:50, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
So which is it? No other editors made that argument or others did but you feel they are also wrong? A number of editors raised the concern on the article talk page at the time the LABEL was first applied [44]. Springee (talk) 23:50, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
Re-read what I wrote. Cortador (talk) 07:11, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
Obviously a dictionary is meaningless here - WP:BESTSOURCES applies and a dictionary is never going to be the best source on climate change. If the dictionary doesn't mention Peterson it's also WP:SYNTH / WP:OR to use it to try and argue how he should be described. --Aquillion (talk) 18:25, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
If we write our text in a way that a reasonable reader can infer something that is not true to our sources because our definition of a term is different than what dictionaries say the term means, yeah, that is a problem. That means we should clarify. Springee (talk) 18:30, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

You say our definition; but what we go by is neither editors' personal opinions nor editors' personal readings of the dictionary; we go by the best available source's definition, which is, obviously, not dictionary. If the best available sources call someone's position is climate change denial (and based on the sources provided above and below, it's clear that in this case they do), then using a dictionary to try and second-guess them is straightforward WP:OR / WP:SYNTH. There is some room to consider how to best summarize those best sources, but the language we use has to ultimately be based on theirs - a dictionary shouldn't come into that and if someone is trying to invoke one then they need to stop. Wikipedia is based on the WP:BESTSOURCES - the highest-quality ones available in the topic area - which means that a reasonable editor who sees someone's position described as climate change denial will reasonably (and correctly) conclude that that's what the best sources use. Conversely, if we omit it (as you have argued), that reasonable reader would (incorrectly!) conclude that the best available sources do not refer to Patterson's position as climate change denial; that would be a WP:NPOV violation because we would be failing to accurately summarize the sources. "Yeah, but an editor held a dictionary in one hand and the best sources in the other and argued that their wording isn't accurate to what the dictionary says" doesn't come into it. --Aquillion (talk) 19:05, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

If the sources don't say "Peterson is a climate change denier" and we do then either we have either we fail WP:V or we are looking at what the sources say and comparing that to a definition of climate change denier. The question is which definition. We have some sources that offer a broad definition but others that offer a narrow definition (ie the dictionaries). However, when the majority of sources, while critical of Peterson's comments on climate change, don't use the label, then we have to be careful that the label wouldn't imply something Peterson didn't say/believe. Per ABCOM [45] when dealing with a BLP we need to do no harm. If we write something that a reasonable person would read and understand to be different than what we mean/evidence supports then we are violating BLP. Note that I am NOT arguing to avoid including what sources say about him. I am arguing that we need to be faithful to those sources, even when they don't use a LABEL editors would like to use. Again I will note that several editors argued the same here [46] and no consensus was reached. Springee (talk) 19:47, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The sources do say "Peterson is a climate change denier", though. You seem to be arguing that the existence of sources that describe his behavior without using the term is reason enough to avoid the term, but that's not true. Sources that say he's not a climate change denier would be reason enough to avoid the term but we don't have any of those: what we have are sources that say that he opposes the majority of climate scientists about climate change and also call him a climate change denier, and sources that say he opposes the majority of climate scientists about climate change but do not actually use the term "climate change denier". Loki (talk) 21:10, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

But the sources do describe his position as climate-change denial? In addition to the ones discussed above and below, there's: ^[1]^[2]^[3] --Aquillion (talk) 04:55, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
The first of your sources does support the label. The next two say he engages in climate change denial but they don't personally label him as such. This is similar to the difference between saying someone has done something racist and they are a racist. That said, your sources, unlike at least one of the sources in the article (2 are paywalled) should probably be used instead of the sources in the article since one directly uses the term and the other two are close being verb form vs adjective. Springee (talk) 05:31, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

The answer to the question as posed is clearly "no", so instead let me go over the sources posted in that discussion and try to answer whether they resolve the issue:

This Verge article clearly calls Jordan Peterson an example of a new type of climate denial, and is therefore a strong source for using those words for him.
This Independent article and this CNN article were offered as proof but they never actually call him a climate denier, they just say he was strongly criticized by climate scientists. (The Independent article was tagged "climate denial" but it doesn't say anything about that in the article itself.)
Similarly, this Financial Times article says that Peterson "doubts climate-change is man-made", which is IMO sort of on the line here.
It's weird that these sources were the ones talked about in the thread because some of the ones in the article were much stronger. For instance, there's this other Independent article about the same study as the Verge article which does explicitly call him a climate change denier. And this third Independent article quotes a scientist who calls him a "climate skeptic". And the DeSmog piece in the body is very unequivocal (though I'm unsure how reliable DeSmog is).

My overall conclusion is that: yes, the sources in the body are strong enough to call him a climate change denier. The sources presented in the talk page argument by themselves were on the line though, and for some reason the argument went in weird directions like whether he's a crank generally (for which many more sources were provided than those that put the actual phrase "climate change denier" or equivalent next to his name). Loki (talk) 18:39, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

The new source I brought into discussion today to reinforce those sources was: "The Crime of Innocence": Baldwin, Bataille, and the Political Theology of Far-Right Climate Politics. By: Loftin, Mac, Political Theology, 1462317X, Sep2023, Vol. 24, Issue 6

It's available on Wikipedia Library for anyone interested in reading it although I present the relevant passage in a diff above. Simonm223 (talk) 18:57, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

I noticed that and thought it was likely useful here but couldn't check it because of the paywall. I will check that out through Wikipedia Library later. Loki (talk) 21:11, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Obviously, we can't engage in original synthesis but it is not synthesis on our part when the sources actually say the thing. Arguing over the precise definitions of words, while seemingly ignoring what the sources are actually saying, is not helpful unless there is some genuine ambiguity of interpretation and I'm just not seeing that here. This is not always done in bad faith but it brings to mind the "Card says Moops" type of argument. As for Peterson specifically, I'm pretty sure that he would be outraged if we didn't describe him as denying man-made climate change. It's not something that he hides and multiple sources have noted it. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:13, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
The problem here is few of the sources actually say "Peterson is a climate change denier". Most say something along the lines of Peterson spreads climate change misinformation or platforms people who do. Springee (talk) 23:47, 7 February 2025 (UTC)
What? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
Using a dictionary to determine if we we're going to call someone x, y or z would be original research because the dictionaries themselves wouldn't state that the person is x, y or z. Our only concern should be with what reliable sources say about the person. TarnishedPath^talk 08:04, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
The argument is the reverse. Per the dictionary definition Peterson isn't a denier because he does believe humans cause climate change. Thus when this came up previously several editors objected to the label because the label was rarely used by sources and the dictionary definition (presumably the one most readers would assume) doesn't fit Peterson because it implies something that isn't true of Peterson. Springee (talk) 12:28, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
It's WP:1AM at this point. Simonm223 (talk) 13:07, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
and approaching WP:BLUDGEON, as well. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 13:36, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
It always has been 1AM and BLUDGEON, not only about Peterson but on pages about climate change deniers in general. Springee wants the artcles to paint their anti-science positions as respectable and fails to convince reality-based editors after week-long sealioning. Topic-ban Springee for climate change, and the problem is solved. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:40, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
@Hob Gadling, take it to either WP:AE or WP:ANI. This is not the place to discuss topic bans because of behavioural issues. TarnishedPath^talk 13:43, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

No, it's not that because we are allowed to use OR to argue something shouldn't be included in an article. Springee (talk) 14:44, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
WP:RS has been provided. I agree with Hob, above. You need to drop the stick, you asked for perspectives and got some, including extra sourcing. I’m not sure why you’re still going at this considering you yourself said The first of your sources does support the label. Warrenᚋᚐᚊᚔ 15:18, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
Being fair I asked for perspectives, not Springee. Simonm223 (talk) 17:39, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

~~Yes. If a source is making up language, it shouldn't be echoed here. This is English wiki, not Englishish wiki. True Blue Editor (talk) 03:28, 9 February 2025 (UTC)~~ sock strike
@True Blue Editor, can you please provide any evidence that sources used in this discussion are "making up language" and what do you mean by "Englishish"? TarnishedPath^talk 06:34, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Just to note that the account @True Blue Editor was created yesterday and their few content edits have all been vandalism eg here and here.OsFish (talk) 06:29, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
That Jordan Peterson is a climate change denier is more-or-less a solidly-sourced fact. Whether we use that particular label or not, I think, is a separate though related editorial question best left as an evaluation of all relevant sources. I think we should try to determine whether sources emphasize this aspect of Peterson's persona or whether they tend to describe it more of an "also ran" sort of thing. We ran into a similar problem in the past with intelligent design. Off-the-cuff support for intelligent design would sometimes end up with some tangentially relevant people being labeled "pseudoscientists" on the basis of their statements in support of intelligent design when those arguments were entirely incidental to the majority of their notoriety. Because such issues were apparent, there were also WP:PROFRINGE supporters who wanted to downplay the "they carry water for pseudoscience" phrasing as too harsh regardless of how true or well-sourced the statement was. If the sources looked at as a whole identify Jordan Peterson with this label preferentially over others, then labeling him as such is in line with normal WP:ASSERTions of fact. If, instead, the sources identify this as only a part of his persona, perhaps not a particularly prominent one, then we should attempt to WP:WEIGHT accordingly. Regardless, we should at least offer the reader a chance to read our article on climate change denial through a link, piped or otherwise, regardless of the consensus on the label. jps (talk) 19:38, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
I think that the general question is more complicated than that, but the specific question is pretty simple and amply covered by the comments above. Consequently, I'm only going to address the general question. If a source uses a contentious term/label, you do sometimes want to consult a dictionary, to see whether the source is using a word in a standard way, because we need to WP:Use our own words to write a sensible summary of what the sources actually mean. We're not just trying to document that the source described in this little blue clicky number used a WP:LABEL. We're trying to summarize the overall meaning of the source. For example, if you have a source that says snake oil is pseudoscience, maybe they don't actually mean Pseudoscience. Maybe they mean Fraud. Maybe they mean wikt:ineffective. Maybe they mean bad science. And maybe they aren't using it as a generic smear word and actually do mean that the snake oil is knowingly promoted with science-y sounding language even though the scientific method never got within a hundred miles of the product's development. There are times when a label needs to be set aside in favor of a description. In the opposite case, you should be slow to go from description to a contentious or politically salient WP:LABEL.
Additionally, if you have hundreds of sources about a public figure, and you're arguing about whether this single source supports the label, you've already made a mistake. You need to be looking at multiple sources. It's not usually enough to find one weak source that sorta kinda applies a label, when there are hundreds that don't. Avoid stretching your sources, especially with BLPs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
Without getting into whether or not there is consensus among reliable sources and just answering about the statement at the top (because he is a BLP, we should discount reliable sources that call Peterson a climate change denialist on the basis that the sources in question don't align with selected dictionary definitions of climate change denialism): No. If a publication gets facts wrong like what it means to be X, that can be taken into account when weighing the reliability of sources and the weight of claims across sources, but it's not because dictionaries trump everything else. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:57, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Climate change denier means denying the well established tenets of climate change. In current times that's equivalent to calling somebody a flat-earther. In Peterson's case, nothing has been given to establish that he has done that and I did a medium depth look and it appears that that epitaph is false. Just because a political-opponent-"source" has hurled that epitaph does not mean that we should or could put it into a BLP as fact in the voice of Wikipedia. From a whole 'nother angle, we here to inform and it would be informative to describe what he has said on the subject rather than using a vague uninformative or misleading value-laden epitaph instead. I use Peterson as an example but this is also useful in general. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:13, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

So you think that the wording has publicly expressed his disbelief in the scientific consensus on climate change, with six sources, should be deleted? The Guardian quotes him as saying Most of the global warming posturing is a masquerade for anti-capitalists to have a go at the Western patriarchy. That’s partly why the climate change thing for me is a contentious issue, because you can’t trust the players. You can’t trust the data because there is too much ideology involved. That is classic denialism. Tons of reliable sources read his utterings as denialist, but they are all wrong because a small group of Wikipedia editors know better because they, and they alone, know how words work. Journalism, schmournalism. Science, schmience. If that is not WP:OR, what is it? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:57, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

For the record, what North8K is referring to as political-opponent-"source"s are mainstream newspapers (The Globe & Mail) and mainstream client scientists (Michael E. Mann). As I pointed out on article Talk, North has asserted this repeatedly, and clearly believes it to be true, but has provided no evidence supporting the accusation. Newimpartial (talk) 11:10, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Go with the sources. And by them Peterson is a climate change denier. This shouldn't be hard. Bon courage (talk) 09:12, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
+1 TarnishedPath^talk 09:47, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

To be clear, most sources do not call him a climate change denier. Instead most say things along the lines of say he and his guests spread climate change misinformation. Only a few actually claim he is a climate change denier. It's Wikipedia editors who generally have taken "spreads misinformation" and summarized it as denier. The factual truth of the summary depends on the definition of "climate change denier". Springee (talk) 11:37, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
Springee, to be clear, a number of sources do use "denies/denial/denier" for Peterson, including The Globe and Mail and Michael E. Mann, as noted just above. Your statement that it is generally Wikipedia editors who do so, and that they are relying on the definition of "climate change denier when they do so, does not seem to be supported by evidence. Rather, it is the two editors who object to the use of the term - yourself and North8K - who continually introduce dictionary sources to raise WP:OR objections to use of a term that is supported by sources and to which no reliable sources object. Newimpartial (talk) 13:03, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

If its the summarisation of "spreading misinformation" to "denying" that's the problem then maybe the solution is to change "He has been widely criticized by climate scientists for denying the scientific consensus on climate change" to "He has been widely criticized by climate scientists for spreading misinformation about the scientific consensus on climate change". Although I thought the point was to summarise what is found in reliable sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:28, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
You are offering what I think is the correct way to address this issue, follow the majority of sources. The majority of sources that talk about Peterson and climate change do not call him a climate change denier. That label is used by a minority of sources and is generally only found after doing a keyword search. The argument for using the denier label is that a few sources use it and his beliefs and actions apply using the broad version of the "climate change denier" definition provided by Wikipedia (To a lesser extent, climate change denial can also be implicit when people accept the science but fail to reconcile it with their belief or action.[6]). However, most of the descriptions fail WP:V if we use the narrower definition provided by the dictionary or even Wikipedia if we exclude the "to a lesser extent" part. Springee (talk) 14:19, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
I think it's important to remember that Peterson's denial of denialism isn't an argument against the label. Someone (I'm not being specific to Peterson here) saying "I don't deny the anthropomorphic causes of climate change, but it isn't caused by burning fossil fuels or other human activities and anyway won't be a negative to humanity." is obviously a climate change denier. Equally a source saying that a subject doesn't believe in the scientific consensus about, and anthropomorphic causes of, climate change could be summarised as a climate change denier.
Personally I think some of the consequences of WP:LABEL are a bit stupid, but changing the sentence so it's not a label generally makes the issue go away. Even changing the sentence to "for spreading misinformation denying the scientific consensus on climate change" makes the issue of LABEL go away. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:40, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
That current section reads ... denying the scientific consensus on climate change .... I don't see any meaningful change in meaning with your wording adding in for spreading misinformation. To be clear I don't buy that the WP:LABEL argument has any teeth to it. TarnishedPath^talk 22:56, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Before this discussion is closed, I wanted to point out that it appears a non sequetur to cite WP:V in the argument, The argument for using the denier label is that a few sources use it ... However, most of the descriptions fail WP:V if we use the narrower definition provided by the dictionary. As I understand it, WP:V discusses the principle of Verifiablility. Something stated as fact by "a few sources" has passed WP:V - even if other sources (possibly more sources or better sources) contest it.

In fact, in this specific instance, the number of sources Independent of the BLP subject that contest Peterson's denialism appears to be zero. Some sources use other terms, but none dispute the fundamental characterization. For example, the use of "skeptic" by some sources does not conflict with "denialist" according to the quality RS on climate change denial - an inconvenience that Springee and North8K attempt to circumvent with an appeal to dictionaries, in blatant disregard for the usual hierarchy of sources on WP. Newimpartial (talk) 10:33, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Politics things have a way of turning extremely simple issues into gigantic impenetrable morasses of text. Do we really need to define what a word is? It's a basic unit of language that carries meaning and refers to something. If a word, applied to a particular thing, is true, then the article should say that word about that thing; if it is not true, then the article should not say that word. jp×g 🗯️ 16:42, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Sources

References

^ Kutney, Gerald (4 December 2023). Climate Denial in American Politics: #ClimateBrawl. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-003-81156-5 – via Google Books. Mr. Musk had removed the timid controls that Twitter had in place to limit propaganda, and, more importantly, he removed the suspensions of those previously banned, including several of the most high-profile climate deniers, such as psychologist Jordan Peterson and Donald Trump
^ "Ontario court rules against Jordan Peterson, upholds social media training order". The Globe and Mail. 23 August 2023. Retrieved 2025-02-08 – via www.theglobeandmail.com. Dr. Peterson rose to prominence in 2016, following the release of videos criticizing federal legislation designed to prevent discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression. Since then, he has gained a worldwide following and regularly posts anti-transgender content, climate change denial and criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau online.
^ Landy, David; Lentin, Ronit; McCarthy, Conor (15 May 2020). Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78699-652-7 – via Google Books. Jordan Peterson's damaging and misleading misogyny, transphobia, and climate-change denial are bolstered by the platforms and credibility his academic post affords him (Earle 2018; Sanneh 2018).

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Islamophobia in Bangladesh

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Islamophobia in Bangladesh. Koshuri ^(グ) 05:01, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

The Discovery of Middle Earth by Graham Robb

Full of fringe stuff, eg druid ley lines. I've put sources at Talk:Graham Robb#The Discovery of Middle Earth is basically fringe. Doug Weller talk 16:47, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Cryptid AfD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Not-deer came across my watchlist recently. I had some questions about depth of coverage related to notability, so it might be helpful to have folks here who deal with those kinds of articles to weigh in. KoA (talk) 22:22, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Pow-wow (folk magic)

An editor has requested that Pow-wow (folk magic) be moved to Braucherei, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion. Nil Einne (talk) 07:38, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I have replaced what was as also mentioned by another editor, non-neutral WP:Canvassing of an active RM with this neutral notice [47]. In doing so I removed 2 other comments however neither of these seem add anything to this notice. Please remember this board is bound by the conventions of all of wikipedia and so while it may be okay to give some indication over your concerns with an article when you're just trying to encourage edits to fix what you see as a problem, it's not acceptable to post a message effectively prejudging what an already ongoing RM (or RfC) should be. Doing so is WP:Canvassing since no matter who frequents this board, notifications of active RMs or RfCs or other discussions trying to reach consensus should be neutral. Nil Einne (talk) 07:44, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

[Ouellette_2007-1] Ouellette, Marc (2007). "Misandry". In Flood, Michael; et al. (eds.). International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities. Routledge. pp. 442–443. ISBN 978-1-1343-1707-3.

[2] Synnott, Anthony (October 6, 2010). "Why Some People Have Issues With Men: Misandry". Psychology Today. Misandry is everywhere, culturally acceptable, even normative, largely invisible, taught directly and indirectly by men and women, blind to reality, very damaging and dangerous to men and women in different ways and de-humanizing.

[3] Allan, Jonathan A. (2016). "Phallic Affect, or Why Men's Rights Activists Have Feelings". Men and Masculinities. 19 (1): 22–41. doi:10.1177/1097184X15574338. ISSN 1097-184X – via The Wikipedia Library. {{cite journal}}: Wikipedia Library link in |url= (help)

[4] Chunn, Dorothy E. (2007). "Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men". Canadian Journal of Family Law. 23 (1): 93. ISSN 0704-1225. ProQuest 228237479.

[5] Carver, T. F. (2003). "Review: Spreading Misandry: the teaching of contempt for men in popular culture". International Feminist Journal of Politics. 5: 480–481. hdl:1983/befd2fcf-8700-46c3-b7c5-aa6caab0e5fd. ISSN 1468-4470.

[Gilmore_p10-6] Gilmore, David G. (2001). Misogyny: The Male Malady. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. pp. 10–13. ISBN 978-0-8122-0032-4. Cite error: The named reference "Gilmore p10" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).

[7] ttps://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/russian-dissident-vladimir-bukovsky-court-14280235

[8] ttps://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/russian-dissident-vladimir-bukovsky-court-14280235

[9] ttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/vladimir-bukovsky-child-porn-images-soviet-dissident-russia-gulags-putin-ussr-garry-kasparov-litvinenko-a8197081.html

[10] ttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-38299820

[11] ttps://web.archive.org/web/20161118121119/http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/vladimir_bukovsky_to_be_prosecuted_over_indecent_images_of_children/

[12] ttps://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/russian-dissident-vladimir-bukovsky-court-14280235

[13] ttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/10/28/vladimir-bukovsky-dissident-fought-soviet-tyranny-expulsion/

[14] ttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/vladimir-bukovsky-child-porn-images-soviet-dissident-russia-gulags-putin-ussr-garry-kasparov-litvinenko-a8197081.html

[15] ttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/vladimir-bukovsky-child-porn-images-soviet-dissident-russia-gulags-putin-ussr-garry-kasparov-litvinenko-a8197081.html

[16] ttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-38299820

[17] ttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-38299820

[18] ttps://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/russian-dissident-vladimir-bukovsky-court-14280235

[19] ttps://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/russian-dissident-vladimir-bukovsky-court-14280235

[20] ttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-38299820

[21] ttps://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/vladimir-bukovsky-child-porn-images-soviet-dissident-russia-gulags-putin-ussr-garry-kasparov-litvinenko-a8197081.html

[22] ttps://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/russian-dissident-vladimir-bukovsky-court-14280235

[23] ttps://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/appeal-court-throws-out-libel-claim-over-cps-press-release/5063252.article

[24] ttps://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/russian-dissident-vladimir-bukovsky-court-14280235

[25] ttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-38299820

[26] Kutney, Gerald (4 December 2023). Climate Denial in American Politics: #ClimateBrawl. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-003-81156-5 – via Google Books. Mr. Musk had removed the timid controls that Twitter had in place to limit propaganda, and, more importantly, he removed the suspensions of those previously banned, including several of the most high-profile climate deniers, such as psychologist Jordan Peterson and Donald Trump

[27] "Ontario court rules against Jordan Peterson, upholds social media training order". The Globe and Mail. 23 August 2023. Retrieved 2025-02-08 – via www.theglobeandmail.com. Dr. Peterson rose to prominence in 2016, following the release of videos criticizing federal legislation designed to prevent discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression. Since then, he has gained a worldwide following and regularly posts anti-transgender content, climate change denial and criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau online.

[28] Landy, David; Lentin, Ronit; McCarthy, Conor (15 May 2020). Enforcing Silence: Academic Freedom, Palestine and the Criticism of Israel. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78699-652-7 – via Google Books. Jordan Peterson's damaging and misleading misogyny, transphobia, and climate-change denial are bolstered by the platforms and credibility his academic post affords him (Earle 2018; Sanneh 2018).

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